


Worthy of Devotion

by hrtiu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: And Action, Bodyguard AU, F/M, Fluff, Moderate Violence, Moderate language, Slow Burn, chancellor chuchi au, ding dong sheev is dead, discussion of clones as property, fox is a hardass in this one, slavery is bad, the republic should never have "owned" clones and they should suffer for it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:28:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 31,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28259979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrtiu/pseuds/hrtiu
Summary: Almost three years into the Clone Wars, Riyo Chuchi began to suspect Chancellor Palpatine was hiding something. She snuck into his office, successfully obtained damning evidence, assembled a coalition of senators, then went to the Jedi Council to seek their aid in ousting the Sith Master. She never expected they'd elect her as his replacement.As soon as Chancellor Chuchi was elected, Fox volunteered to be assigned to her personal protection. He'd spent far too long protecting someone who didn't deserve it, it felt good to serve someone worthy of devotion.
Relationships: Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Comments: 134
Kudos: 227
Collections: Star Wars Secret Santa 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lilhawkeye3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhawkeye3/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written as a thank-you to lilhawkeye3 for organizing the 2020 Star Wars Secret Santa. I'm *hoping* to update weekly, and I already have the first three chapters written. It will likely end up around 10 chapters.
> 
> Also there is a description of someone being choked in this chapter.
> 
> Thank you to flybynite19 and DoIlooklikeIhaveaname for beta'ing!

Riyo waited while the scomp link whirred at Chancellor Palpatine’s personal terminal, nerves alight though she forced a casual expression on her face. There was a good chance she would die here, but her conscience would not allow her to walk away.

Chancellor Palpatine’s office was dark, the red glow of electronic ambient light casting a sinister haze over the otherwise plain office furniture. The few times Riyo had been in here before it had felt imposing, but the profound sense of dread the tall ceilings and wide, possessive window instilled was new. The scomp link finally stopped humming, and Riyo felt the beginnings of hope swell within her, though she knew any celebration was premature.

“Well, what have we here?” a cool, wizened voice sounded through the darkness.

Riyo whirled around, taking care to stand in front of the console with the scomp link still in it. “Chancellor Palpatine!” she said breathlessly.

“Senator Chuchi,” the elderly politician said, a menacing sneer on his face, “What reason could you possibly have to access my personal console?”

Terror gripped Riyo so intensely she couldn’t breathe. She hadn’t heard any doors open or close, but the Chancellor’s mysterious entrance only served as further evidence of her very worst suspicions.

“I, ah… Seem to have gotten lost,” she said, aware that it was a pathetic excuse but her imagination failing her.

“Hmm,” he said, considering her like he would a bug beneath his boot. “Well that is unfortunate for you, because I cannot afford to extend you the benefit of the doubt.”

In a flash Chancellor Palpatine raised a weathered hand and her throat seized up, the walls of her larynx squeezing tighter and tighter together.

“You’ve meddled in my affairs for the last time, Riyo Chuchi,” the Chancellor said, his brows furrowing in malice and transforming his features into those of the Sith Lord she now knew him to be.

She tried to shout, tried to scream for help, but it was no use. She was utterly powerless against a force so foreign and terrible as this. Black spots faded out her vision, and she felt herself begin to lose consciousness. This would be the end, there was no-

_BAM BAM BAM._

Riyo woke up in a cold sweat, her white-knuckled hands clutching her sheets to her chest. Her heartbeat raced as she hurriedly turned on the lights, taking in the luxurious apartment around her and assuring herself that she was safe.

A heavy fist pounded against her door again. “Chancellor Chuchi? Is everything alright?”

Right. _She_ was Chancellor, not Palpatine. She’d successfully obtained the evidence, assembled a coalition of senators, then gone to the Jedi Council to seek their aid in ousting the Sith Master. That had been months ago—months since Palpatine’s trial, months since his execution, months since the war had abruptly ended, months since she’d won the emergency election to replace Palpatine in a surprise landslide.

“Chancellor, I’m overriding the lock on the door” the voice from the other room said, finally bringing Riyo to full consciousness.

“No, wait-!”

Her ray-shielded doors hissed open and a clone soldier burst in, his distinctively-painted armor and unmistakable confidence identifying him as her personal bodyguard, Commander Fox. He first checked that Riyo was alive and well in bed, then his helmet swept back and forth across the room, scanning for any threats.

“Ma’am, I heard screaming,” he said.

“I screamed?” Riyo asked, surprised. She’d tried to scream in the dream but Palpatine’s vice-like grip around her throat had prevented her. She hadn’t realized her attempts would translate to vocalization in the waking world.

“Yes, Madam Chancellor. I asked if you were in need of assistance several times without a response. Otherwise I wouldn’t have-”

“Of course, Commander. I understand,” Riyo said, fighting the flush rising to her cheeks. She was perfectly covered in her sheets and knee-length nightgown, but she still felt exposed being seen by the intensely professional Commander in only her nightdress.

“Is there anything I can assist with?” Fox asked, voice slightly distorted by his helmet. She wouldn’t feel quite so embarrassed if he didn’t seem so completely composed. It was entirely unfair that he got to wear a helmet while Riyo had to go about with her emotions always written out on her face.

“No, thank you. Just a nightmare,” she said with a wave of her hand.

Fox stood up straighter, his posture somehow more relaxed standing tall. He gave her a respectful nod of the helmet. “I’ll leave you, then,” he said, turning for the door.

Riyo rubbed her eyes. “Wait, Fox? What time is it?”

“0500, ma’am.”

Riyo sighed, then pushed herself upright and swung her legs out over the side of the bed. “Then I might as well get up since I’m already awake.”

Fox nodded, then left the room, shutting the door behind him.

Riyo dressed quickly, partly to get a good start on her day but more so out of a desire to minimize the amount of time she had to spend by herself. She was Chancellor and Palpatine was dead, but she couldn’t help seeing his minions in the shadows or hearing threats from the former Separatist states plotting behind closed doors.

As soon as she left her quarters she was accompanied by a minimum of two people at all times, most often Commander Fox and her assistant Maja Joyo. Maja trailed her from meeting to meeting, arms stacked high with datapads and always ready with a reminder or a helpful suggestion, while Fox followed like a shadow, rarely noticed but ever-present.

In the morning she convened an endlessly tedious meeting with the Trade Federation to discuss reconciliation and the reopening of trade routes. A significant number of senators wanted to punish the Trade Federation for their relationship with the Separatists during the war, but Riyo had to remind them that the Federation was important for the galaxy’s economic recovery. That fact did not make the pompous Federation blowhards any easier to deal with, of course.

Riyo ate a quick lunch in the hallway as she rushed from one conference room to the next for the budget meeting with the Committee on Expenditures. The meeting was long and tense as committee members fought to fund their interests while the Senate struggled to pay for various wartime recovery plans. Riyo had long since learned that, while her colleagues might argue for a wide variety of proposals on the Senate floor, the budget told you where their true priorities lay.

Last up was the Armed Services Committee, and Riyo had arranged her day to build up to this tricky discussion. She had to gradually introduce the idea of creating jobs for former soldiers to the Trade Federation, then work out the very thorny negotiation of the GAR budget in the Committee on Expenditures. The Senators saw the wartime GAR budget as a wounded nerf, vulnerable and ready to be torn apart, but Riyo knew that the Armed Services Committee still had a lot to accomplish, even with the treaties signed.

“Just because the war is over doesn’t mean we have no need of a standing army,” Senator Paulness said.

“Yes, but one this expensive?” said Senator Taam. “We can’t afford this forever.”

“The biggest problem in my mind is that our soldiers should be paid,” said Senator Organa.

“Excuse me?” said Senator Taam. “Did you even _hear_ what I just said?”

Riyo raised a hand. “Alright, alright, we’re not going to get anywhere talking over each other.”

The three men stopped bickering to look to her, and it took a moment for Riyo to react. She still wasn’t used to people listening to her.

“We need to reduce the size of the GAR,” she said. “We increased our loans from the Banking Clan to fund the latter half of the war, and that’s not the kind of deficit spending we can sustain, especially without a war to justify it. Now how much we reduce the size of the GAR and how we help our soldiers retire with dignity and respect is the challenge we must now resolve.”

The three senators fell silent and exchanged glances. “Easier said than done,” said Senator Paulness.

“Precisely. Which is why we will be meeting frequently over the next few months until we can pass legislation. I’ve met with my economic advisors and the Committee on Expenditures already, so their interests will be represented, and Commander Fox here can provide a clone perspective.”

Commander Fox’s helmet turned towards Riyo from his spot in the corner of the room, the first move he’d made since taking up the position.

“A clone? But won’t he be biased?” Senator Paulness said.

“As are we all,” Riyo said. “How can we discuss the future of the GAR without consulting those who will be most affected by our decisions?” She turned to face Fox. “Commander, are you willing to help?”

Fox took a split second longer than expected to respond, Riyo’s only hint that her request had thrown him off. “I will answer whatever questions you have, Madam Chancellor.”

That was good enough for Riyo. With a smile she motioned him to sit at the table, and Fox only hesitated a moment before folding his long legs under the table and taking a seat.

“And, um… If you wouldn’t mind,” Riyo said, tapping two fingers to her temple. “You can consider this an off-duty discussion.”

She might have imagined it, but Riyo thought she heard a sigh before the hiss and click of Fox removing his helmet, revealing an unamused frown underneath.

Fox had been one of the very first people to approach Riyo after her election. He’d congratulated her with characteristic dispassion and informed her that the Coruscant Guard was at her disposal, and that he specifically would be responsible for her personal security. Riyo had briefly considered sending him and his guard away, afraid that Fox was essentially one of the former Chancellor’s minions, in cahoots with him and to at least some degree complicit in his crimes. But within less than a day it had become clear that Fox and his men had been used and manipulated by Sheev Palpatine just as much, if not more, than the Senate.

“How can I help you, ma’am?” Fox asked, his handsome features sober as ever.

“Broadly speaking, what do you think of talk of disbanding the GAR?”

“I think the Republic needs a military force for protection against its enemies, prevention of aggression from outside forces, and enforcement of its laws within its borders,” Fox said.

“My point exactly!” Senator Paulness said.

“Perhaps you are right, but that is an argument for the maintenance of some form of armed services,” Riyo said. “What about the continuance of a clone army, specifically?”

Fox opened his mouth, then closed it again, his brow furrowing in the most obvious display of consternation Riyo had ever witnessed from him. “Has the clone army not performed to your satisfaction, Chancellor?”

Riyo’s eyes went wide. “Of course it has! No one who’s ever seen a clone unit in action could claim otherwise. But it doesn't seem right, that the clones should remain serving the Republic after the war has ended, and when the scandal of their conscription has been revealed.”

“That’s it exactly!” Senator Organa said. “How can we maintain an army our previous Chancellor wanted to use to bring himself to power? Take you, for example, Commander. You served directly under Chancellor Palpatine’s command, and now you fill the same position under Chancellor Chuchi. Does that seem right?”

“...I fought for this post, Senator. I didn’t receive it automatically after Chancellor Chuchi was elected.”

Riyo blinked blankly at Fox for a moment. She hadn’t known that.

“And forgive the correction, sir, but my position is not the same now as it was under Chancellor Palpatine. I was never Chancellor Palpatine’s personal guard, and though I’ve retained my rank, I no longer perform the role of Commander of the Coruscant Guard. That would be Commander Thorn.”

Riyo flushed a delicate blue. She hadn’t really realized herself that Commander Fox no longer commanded the Coruscant Guard. That seemed like the kind of thing she should know, but she was still so new to the job.

“Why would you request this post?” Senator Paulness asked, brow furrowed.

Fox pursed his lips, then spoke in a low, tight voice. “ _Sheev Palpatine_ sent hundreds of thousands of my brothers to die in a war that _he created_. I suppose I have to thank him, in a roundabout way, since we never would have been created but for the war. But I would be honored to die protecting the woman who freed us from him.”

Riyo leaned back in her seat and nervously interlaced her fingers, taken aback by the intensity of Fox’s regard. She’d always seen him as an extremely disciplined man who was devoted to his job, but realizing that some of that devotion was directed at her personally was… overwhelming. For not the first time she wondered if it hadn’t been a mistake to accept this position.

“But you see that’s exactly the problem, Fox,” Riyo said. “You and your brothers are still unpaid and disenfranchised. Can you still say that you’re free?”

Fox shrugged. “Then pay us.”

 _Now we get to the crux of the problem_ , Riyo thought to herself with a sigh. “The truth is that we can’t afford to pay you. There are over two million clones in the GAR, and most of them say they want to remain soldiers, but we can’t pay them. And I refuse to keep the clones on as property of the Republic.”

“We want pay and citizenship, but we avoid thinking of ourselves as property," he said, which Riyo could understand. The clones were required to devote themselves to the Republic, and she imagined that was much easier to do if they turned a blind eye to the abuses of the very Republic they served.

"We don’t know any other way of life, and we were made to be soldiers," Fox continued. "I’d imagine some of my brothers might even want to stay in the GAR even if they remained unpaid.”

Figures and tables from her many meetings with the budget committee floated through Riyo’s mind, and she shook her head.

“We can’t afford to continue as we are, either,” Senator Taam said, giving voice to Riyo’s thoughts. “Now that we’re no longer involved in a galactic war, we have no need of such a large standing army, and there’s no way the Senate will allocate the funds necessary to maintain the GAR at its current size, even if clones remain unpaid.”

An uncomfortable tension filled the room, and Fox’s hard gaze weighed on Riyo for several seconds before he responded. “I don’t understand what you want from me. What is it you want my opinion on?”

“The GAR can’t remain as it is. We need to find a way to transition our soldiers to a civilian, _citizen_ life. Does that sound appealing to you? How do you suggest we do that?”

“Citizenship is appealing, but life outside the military is an unknown quantity—a risk. Most of my brothers will not want that if given a choice. At least in the GAR we know we will have food and housing. Very few men will be willing to leave the service unless a source of employment, housing, and purpose is made clear.”

It was more or less the answer Riyo expected, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. She felt certain if the clones had any idea what civilian life was like they’d be more willing to leave the GAR, but of course she couldn’t know that for sure. They’d been tailor-made for war—maybe it truly was the way of being they enjoyed most.

“We’re talking in circles,” Senator Paulness said. “We need to come up with practical, actionable legislation.”

“Well I think it’s clear where we need to start,” Riyo said. “Under no circumstances should the clone army be considered the property of the Republic. I know Commander Fox says that’s not how they see themselves but currently, legally-speaking, they are practically slaves. I propose we immediately introduce legislation that makes GAR service voluntary and releases the clones from Republic ownership. Separate legislation will be worked out later negotiating the GAR budget and providing assistance to those clones transitioning out of military service.”

Senator Paulness opened his mouth to object, but Senator Organa cut him off with a severe look. “Are you seriously going to argue against freeing sentient beings the Republic never should have owned in the first place, _Zinn_?”

Senator Paulness shut his mouth.

“I can agree to that,” Senator Taam said. “I’ll draft the bill and send committee members a draft by the end of the week.”

“Excellent,” Riyo said. “And I think Commander Fox should be a permanent fixture in our meetings. We can work on making him an official member of the Committee.”

Senators Taam and Paulness exchanged doubtful looks, but Senator Organa agreed and quickly moved the topic back to the voluntary service legislation.

They spent the rest of the meeting arguing over wording and timing, and Commander Fox melted into the background, resuming his statue-like state. The meeting convened, and Riyo gathered up her datapads and checked her chrono, wondering what Maja had planned for dinner.

“Madam Chancellor,” Senator Paulness pulled her aside before she had a chance to make her escape.

“Yes?”

Senator Paulness grimaced. “Must we really have Commander Fox in all of our meetings? He has a somewhat… unnerving presence.”

Riyo glared at the senator, appalled, then glanced over her shoulder to see if Fox was in hearing distance. His intensity could sometimes set her on edge, too, but it was his job to be vigilant. He’d only ever shown her loyalty and professionalism, and he didn’t deserve the judgment of a second-rate hack like Paulness. “The clones must have an advocate in these discussions, Senator. I won’t hear another complaint about this.”

“But-”

“Not another word, Senator.”

Riyo turned on her heel and marched from the room, Maja and Fox trailing after her. She marched with head held high all the way to the lifts, though once safely inside she let herself lean against the wall. It had been a long, exhausting day.

“Madam Chancellor?”

Riyo started, looking up only to realize it was Commander Fox who had addressed her. He’d rarely initiated conversation in the six months that he’d served as her personal guard.

“Yes, Fox?”

“I don’t think I’m the best choice to represent the clones in your discussions.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’m a high ranking officer who served in the capital instead of on the front lines. My experiences are not representative of the vast majority of clone service.”

Riyo brought a hand to her chin, considering. “That’s a fair argument.”

“I could provide suggestions for alternatives.”

“See that you do,” Riyo said. “A clone perspective must be represented in the writing of this legislation, and if you can’t find a suitable replacement, I must insist that you stay on.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

* * *

“ _We’re getting hammered on the road, sir!_ ” Captain Peke’s voice screamed to Bacara over the commlink.

Bacara cursed under his breath. “Defensive positions, return fire! Just… hunker down until the General takes them out!”

“ _Yessir!_ ”

Bacara settled back into the shallow trench he and his company of ARC troopers had dug into the thick jungle.

“Peke’s AT-TE company’s getting destroyed, aren’t there?” Solus asked from Bacara’s side, and Bacara nodded tersely in response.

“We _told_ General Mundi this would happen! What the kriff was he thinking?”

“ _Hey!_ ” Bacara said sharply. “Watch your tone, soldier. We follow orders.”

Solus shut his mouth but shook his head, his eyes rolling in frustration. And privately, Bacara had to agree with him. General Mundi’s plan to take the Separatist base involved a two-pronged approach: Peke would come up the cliffside road with a company of AT-TEs while Bacara’s team dropped behind enemy lines. The two groups would attack at once, overwhelming the enemy. When Bacara had voiced concerns about how exposed the AT-TEs’ path was, General Mundi had told him not to worry. The General would be leading his own strike force to take out whatever forces bombarded the AT-TEs.

 _Don’t worry. Trust the Force. You need not be concerned._ The General was always spouting that kind of nonsense and Bacara was getting kriffing sick of it.

“General Mundi,” Bacara commed the Cerean Jedi. “Captain Peke needs support now.”

“ _I’m on my way, Commander, never fear_ ,” came his response.

 _I’m not afraid_ , Bacara thought but didn’t say, pursing his lips.

He shut off his comm and settled in for a long wait.

“We shouldn’t even be here,” Solus grumbled.

Bacara hit him upside the head. “Quiet. Don’t give our position away and screw this operation up even more than it already is.”

A sullen silence descended upon the group as they all stewed over Solus’s words. _They shouldn’t even be here_. The war was officially over, the politicians on Coruscant had already signed the treaties and shaken hands. But rogue Separatist cells remained and as usual, the Republic sent its disposable army to clean up its messes.

And it wasn’t even the same Republic they’d been serving for the past three years. Just before this campaign had begun news of Chancellor Palpatine’s arrest and execution had come through. It seemed strange to Bacara that the organization that owned them could simply change hands like that from one rival to the next, but he was just a soldier after all.

The team sat in tense silence for another two hours. Then the signal finally came through.

“ _Commander Bacara, Captain Peke and his men have reached the base. Launch your assault now._ ” came General Mundi’s voice over the comm.

“You heard him, boys. Let’s move out!”

The fight was long and brutal, but that was Bacara’s specialty. Peke’s AT-TE division was severely reduced from the start, and General Mundi’s division, while incredibly effective, was small and limited in its influence. That left the bulk of the fighting to Bacara and his men. _As usual_ , Bacara thought.

At the end of the day, they prevailed through the skill, blood, and sacrifice of Bacara’s men. It made Bacara proud. It made him angry.

Bacara strode into the command center aboard the _Venator_ still covered with the sweat and dirt of battle.

“Congratulations on the day’s victory, General,” he said to General Mundi.

General Mundi inclined his wizened head. “Death and destruction is never to be celebrated, but I appreciate the sentiment.”

The click of Bacara’s jaw was the only outward hint of what he thought of _that_ response. “I’ll have the reports from the battle prepared for you by 0600.”

“Thank you, Bacara. We can have a more thorough debrief after I’ve read the reports.”

Bacara doubted much would be gleaned from such a debrief, but he nodded regardless. General Mundi was a skilled warrior who’s Force powers and lightsaber made him extremely valuable on the field of battle, but he was not military-minded. It had taken several years for the scales to fall from Bacara’s eyes, for him to realize that the unquestioning belief in the Jedi generals ingrained in him from his time on Kamino was flawed, but fall they had.

It made no sense that men who’d lived, dreamed, ate, _breathed_ warfare their entire lives—who’d been _created_ for battle—should be led by an order of pacifist monks. But of course aside from battle Bacara had also been created for obedience, so he grit his teeth and bore it.

Had he been in charge of today’s battle, Bacara would have secured the ridge opposite the road before sending in the AT-TEs. He would have sent air support from the south to distract from the ARC troopers to the north. Fewer men would have died, and their objective would have been taken more swiftly.

“Then what is our next objective, sir?” Bacara asked.

“We’ve received reports of a Separatist cruiser nearby—the _Obrexta_. Intelligence intercepted transmissions stating that it is carrying cargo of great importance to Count Dooku. We are to ambush the cruiser and, if possible, seize the cargo.”

“Yes, sir.”


	2. Chapter 2

The room was secure, so Fox was happy. He stood behind the Chancellor’s seat, hands behind his back and eyes vigilant as he and the Chancellor waited for her pod to be raised into the bowl of the Galactic Senate. Chancellor Palpatine hadn’t been in the habit of bringing any of his personal guard with him into the Senate chambers, but Chancellor’s Chuchi’s youth, the relative unimportance of her home planet, and the unusual circumstances of her election all made her a tempting target, and Fox wasn’t about to take any risks.

Chancellor Chuchi took a deep breath, righting her long red chancellor’s robes and settling herself behind the podium that would, in only a few brief moments, lift up and into the very center of the Senate chambers.

“Don’t worry, ma’am, you look perfect,” Maja said with a bright smile, the white of her teeth forming a sharp contrast to her viridian Mirialan skin.

The Chancellor offered Maja a tight smile, her fingers clutching the folds of her robe tightly. She turned her head to Fox and he focused his attention on her, though from behind the helmet he doubted she could tell. “Fox, do I really look a mess?”

“No, ma’am.”

“What, is my word not good enough?” Maja asked with false outrage.

The Chancellor grinned at her friend. “Certainly, but you’re too kind. Whatever Commander Fox is, he isn’t a liar.”

Maja giggled and Chancellor Chuchi looked back to gauge Fox’s reaction. She’d been doing that more and more frequently, like a scientist testing if he had a soul. He remained silent and immovable behind the mask of his helmet.

The Chancellor sighed, the smile falling from her face, and Fox almost wanted to humor her. Then the roof above them opened up, Vice Chair Elba Ek joined them on the platform, and with a whoosh the pod rose into the midst of the Senate.

Over a thousand pods surrounded them in a giant dish of democracy, and the Chancellor looked like she was about to be sick. She’d been doing this for a half year now, but still Fox saw the terror in her eyes before every session—a terror she always managed to banish seconds before raising her face to the crowd.

She opened the session with all the usual pomp and circumstance while Fox kept his eyes on the Senate and his hand on his blaster. The opening rituals passed by without incident, and the Chancellor gave the floor to Senator Organa to introduce the bill freeing the clones.

Fox realized he should probably be more excited about this moment, but the feeling didn’t come. It was difficult to believe that any clone would know a life outside the GAR, no matter what a piece of flimsi said. And as the Chancellor herself often said, it was the budget that revealed what the Senate truly intended to do, and no money had been allocated to any transition or retirement programs for the clones.

So it was with little personal interest that Fox watched Senator Organa’s pod float out into the open air of the Senate for his speech. He addressed his colleagues, reciting the words Taam had written and the committee had workshopped over and over again to get just right, and to their credit the other senators appeared to listen intently.

“A government is only as good as its actions during its darkest hour, and I am afraid by that measure our Republic has fallen short,” Senator Organa began. “In our desperation to defend ourselves, we conscripted an army of sentient beings—of Human men—to fight our battles for us. Clones these men may be, but they are individuals with hearts and souls, and as it stands now our Republic has committed the grave sin of enslaving these individuals.”

A low roar rose up from the Senate, which was to be expected. Slavery was a cruel, dirty word, and it wasn’t a word anybody wished to associate with their own government, but Fox found some satisfaction in witnessing the senators be forced to reckon with their own misdeeds. Fox caught the hypocrisy of that last thought and grimaced.

“Order! Order!” called Vice Chair Ek, his gravelly voice amplified to fill the chamber.

Vice Chair Ek, a Human representing Hosnian Prime, wasn’t a close friend of the Chancellor and had been a surprising pick for Vice Chair. His appointment had introduced a lot of stress into Fox’s life as he triple and quadruple-vetted the politician and never felt quite comfortable with his one-on-one meetings with the Chancellor. Still, the alliance with a representative from a central, important system was probably wise for the Pantoran Chancellor.

Senator Organa waited for the chaos to die down, then continued. “We propose that, effective immediately, service in the Grand Army of the Republic become voluntary, that any clone who wishes to leave may do so, and that no clone is to ever be considered property again.”

“How can this be proposed?” Senator Burtoni objected. Predictable, Fox thought, his helmet hiding the roll of his eyes. “Is the Republic to unleash a hoard of men bred for violence onto the civilian population without any skills or resources to make ends meet?”

The corner of Chancellor Chuchi’s mouth ticked downwards, but she quickly caught the involuntary motion and returned to a look of calm control. There was no way the Kaminoan Senator’s objections were in good faith, but they were valid nonetheless, and the Chancellor and her allies would need to address them. Though Chancellor Chuchi wanted to pass the bill as soon as possible, it wouldn’t be practical for any soldier to actually take advantage of it until some assistance was made available to them.

“The Armed Services Committee is working on a program to support retired soldiers as we speak,” said Senator Organa, “and we will pass such a bill as soon as possible. However, no matter what program we pass, slavery will never be acceptable in the Republic. That will not change, and this is a wrong we should correct as soon as possible. We need to send a message as clear as daylight that slavery is not tolerated within the Republic—that our government abides by its own laws.”

The clones didn’t particularly like the term “slave”, but Fox could understand the tactical import in this situation. It just felt so much nobler and more palatable to see themselves as disciplined, obedient, self-sacrificing soldiers who willingly defended their Republic than property of said Republic with no other options.

Nevertheless, the facts were that the clones could not leave the GAR, did not have citizenship, and were technically property of the Republic, and thus the term “slavery” wasn’t entirely inaccurate. Fox hated it, but it was true. It had taken him a long while to come to this recognition, largely because it had hurt to allow himself to see how deeply the Republic he served and loved did not love him back.

Senator Rathin, representing Shili, spoke up enthusiastically. “Hear, hear! My people have been the targets of slavers in the very recent past. How can we trust that the Republic will prosecute such crimes if they do not acknowledge slavery enacted on such a grand scale?”

“If the Republic truly intends to release all of the clones from their custodianship, they should be returned to Kamino,” Senator Burtoni said.

Senator Organa levelled the older woman with a frank stare. “You do realize that systems dealing in slavery will not be tolerated in the Republic, don’t you? Are you proposing Kamino withdraw from the Republic?”

“I said no such thing!”

Debate continued, though opposition to the bill was flaccid. Nobody wanted to be seen opposing a bill denouncing slavery, after all. Though the bill wouldn’t make much of a difference to his brothers’ lives until further legislation gave it teeth, Fox couldn’t help but feel some hope that things might actually go in a positive direction. It wasn’t a very familiar feeling.

After several hours of back and forth, Chancellor Chuchi called for a vote, and the yeas and nays were quickly tallied.

“The bill passes with 856 votes in favor,” Vice Chair Ek said, banging his ceremonial staff with a resounding _thunk_.

Fox felt the vibration of the staff through his boots, and his reality subtly shifted around him. It surprised him. He’d worked protecting the people in this building his entire adult life, but had never before felt like the things that happened here could affect him. But now the colors of the senators’ robes and frippery appeared more vibrant and alive to his eyes, the sounds of their voices echoing throughout the cavernous chamber more sonorous to his ears. Sure, there may be no practical way for him or his brothers to walk away from GAR right now, but the possibility was there, in a vital and real way.

He allowed a tiny smile to quirk up the corner of his mouth and his gaze flitted back to Chancellor Chuchi. She smiled in genuine pleasure at their success, and the now-familiar satisfaction of protecting someone he believed deserved his respect filled his chest.

The Senate moved on to other bills and procedures, and Fox tuned out any noise that wasn’t relevant to the Chancellor’s security. Regular check-ins from troopers stationed at each door came in like clockwork, feeds from various security cameras looked standard as he cycled through them on his HUD, and his visual spotchecks of the chambers all registered as normal. Eventually, Vice Chair Ek banged his staff again and Chancellor Chuchi brought the proceedings to a close. The podium lowered, the roof above them closed, and the session was over.

“What’s next on my schedule?” Chancellor Chuchi asked Maja.

“You’re meeting with…” Maja squinted at the datapad in her hand before realizing it was the wrong one and hastily swapping it with another, “Commander Fox’s recommendation for the clone seat on the Armed Services Committee. CT-7567.”

“Oh yes. In my office, right?”

“He should already be there.”

Commander Fox followed after the pair silently as they headed to the Chancellor’s office, the prospect of actually introducing the Chancellor to CT-7567 making him wonder if perhaps this recommendation had been a mistake. Rex might not be willing to work with Chancellor Chuchi if he couldn’t forgive Fox.

As Maja had said, Rex was already waiting outside of the Chancellor’s office when they arrived. He stood on their approach, helmet tucked under his arm, and saluted sharply. The Chancellor approached him with delicate cornflower hand outstretched, an easy smile on her face.

“Captain Rex, so pleased to meet a friend of Commander Fox.”

Captain Rex raised an eyebrow at Fox, likely wondering something along the lines of _who told her we were friends?_

“Likewise, Madam Chancellor,” Rex said, shaking her hand.

“And this is my assistant, Maja Joyo.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

The Chancellor led them into her office and she took her place behind her giant desk while Maja, Fox, and Rex sat across from her. The desk easily took up a third of the area of Chancellor Chuchi’s office—the very same office she’d occupied when she was still a lowly junior senator. Though Fox had enumerated the many security advantages of the old Chancellor’s office, Chancellor Chuchi had flatly refused to take up residence in those sumptuous rooms.

“Madam Chancellor, CT-7567 is one of the finest officers in the GAR,” Fox said. “He’d make an excellent addition to the Armed Services Committee.”

Rex’s eyes widened. “Armed Services Committee?”

Chancellor Chuchi nodded. “Yes. It’s absolutely appalling that the committee that makes major decisions for the GAR doesn’t have a single member with military experience. Commander Fox said that you were well-suited for the job.”

Rex looked sideways at Fox in surprise. “Sir?”

Fox shifted in his seat, unused to having to explain himself about these kinds of things. “The 501st is well-known for being a personable, tight-knit group. You’re close to your junior troopers and understand where they’re coming from, and you’re good with civilians.”

Rex cleared his throat, as uncomfortable receiving Fox’s compliments as Fox was with giving them. “Thank you, sir.”

“Captain Rex, the Armed Services Committee helps write legislation related to the Republic’s military forces, military research, and veterans affairs. The committee will be working on developing legislation that will reduce the size of the GAR and assist veterans in transitioning to civilian life, and it could sorely use your insight and perspective.”

“That sounds like a worthy cause, Madam Chancellor.”

“Are you willing to join?”

Rex hesitated only a moment. “Yes, ma’am.”

Chancellor Chuchi leaned forward across her desk, her arched eyebrow raised. “This isn’t an order, Captain. You can refuse.”

“I understand, ma’am. I’d like to join the committee.”

Chancellor Chuchi smiled and she clasped her hands in front of her. “Excellent!”

“Will I be removed from my current position?”

“You’ll retain your rank and place in the 501st, but you’ll be given this role as a temporary assignment. While working on the committee, you’ll be relocated to Coruscant and won’t be a part of any deployments with the GAR—at least until the legislation is passed,” she said.

“Understood.”

Chancellor Chuchi went on to go through some of the logistics while Maja gave her increasingly meaningful looks. The Chancellor was always doing that—getting too far into the weeds now that her job was the highest of the high level. It was something Fox could relate to. As Commander of the Coruscant Guard he’d often had to resist the urge to get too personally involved in whatever issue was at hand. That was one of the nice things about being Chancellor Chuchi’s personal guard. It was a simple task he could devote his entire self to without any distractions. Fox liked that.

Eventually the Chancellor took her assistant’s hint and thanked Captain Rex for his time, accompanying him to the door of her office. Rex thanked her back and turned to Fox, an uncomfortable look on his face.

“And, um. Commander Fox,” he said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other before deciding on a crisp salute as a farewell. Fox supposed that was about as good as he could ask for.

Captain Rex went one way down the hallway and Maja and the Chancellor went the other way, on to continue the seemingly endless parade of meetings and committees and public appearances that each, in their own special way, provided the Chancellor’s many enemies with a fresh opportunity to kill her. Fox melted into the background where he was most comfortable, always wary, always at the ready. He hadn’t always been this way. He used to lead from the front, used to inspire bravery in his men and fear in his enemies, used to be the public face of the GAR. He didn’t deserve that anymore.

He followed the Chancellor and her assistant, always three steps behind, existing in her shadow. Where he belonged.

* * *

Riyo said goodnight to Maja for the fifth time, and this time the organized Mirilian _finally_ couldn’t think of a single additional note or reminder to give her to drag out this interminable day. Riyo retreated into her apartment, shucking her shoes by the door and dragging her feet to the couch where she promptly collapsed.

She closed her eyes and let out a massive exhale, letting her bones liquify into the plush couch. The heavy steps of Commander Fox’s booted feet chased her into the apartment, their steady rhythm now as constant in her life as her own heartbeat.

“I wish you would take your boots off inside,” she said, eyes still closed. “Who knows what you're tracking inside.”

Fox sighed, as he had every other time she’d brought this up. “I can’t take any part of my uniform off when I’m on duty. But I wipe them off every time, to please you.”

Riyo sat up, a smile growing on her face as she turned back to him. Sometimes, usually at night after all her meetings were over, he opened up just the tiniest but—like a door cracked open just enough to let a sliver of light through. Those moments made her new life just a little bit less lonely.

“What do you think of Captain Rex?” she asked.

Commander Fox shrugged as he paced around the room in his nightly ritual, checking first the windows, then the doors, then any potential hiding places. “I already told you. He has an excellent reputation, is known as a people person, is well-respected by his men.”

“Yes, but it seemed like there was some… tension between you. I wondered why you would recommend him considering you two don’t seem to get along.”

Fox’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t break his stride as he continued his inspection. “I don’t have a lot of friends, ma’am. Rex is a good soldier, and that’s what you need.”

“Hmm…” Riyo said, disappointed but unsurprised by Fox’s unwillingness to elaborate. She folded her arms across her chest and put her feet up on the coffee table, relieved to finally be able to adopt an undignified posture. Sometimes Fox seemed just as lonely as her, but she knew if she ever tried to broach the subject it wouldn’t go well. That was fine—everybody had their ways, and it was no use trying to force him to change. In Riyo’s experience you got the best out of people when you let them be themselves.

Fox finished his sweep of the apartment and retreated to his favorite lurking corner, where he typically stayed put until the shift change at 0000. His departure reminded Riyo of a discussion she’d had with Maja earlier over dinner.

“Oh, Fox, can I run something by you?” she asked, wanting to catch him before he fully retracted into his bodyguard shell.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Fox walked back to Riyo, standing in front of her with hands behind his back and feet shoulder-width apart.

“Now that service in the GAR is voluntary, do you think people will start leaving?”

Fox remained perfectly still as he answered, helmet still on. “There are over a million of us—I’m sure at least some will leave. But probably very few. We still don’t have citizenship or any form of assistance.”

Riyo sighed. “Yes, I know. We’re working on that, but I’m worried that even after such assistance is made available, many soldiers will be reluctant to leave the only profession they know behind.”

“That’s likely to be a problem, yes.”

“In light of this concern, I’d like to make a request of you, specifically.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

Riyo motioned for him to sit, and he reluctantly obeyed, taking his helmet off without her prompting. Riyo leaned forward in her seat, understanding that what she was about to ask might mean much more to him than she could comprehend. “Will you be the first to leave the GAR?”

“I’m… not sure that I understand.”

“I can imagine that it may be difficult for many clones to imagine a life outside of the GAR, that the majority will want to remain soldiers simply because any alternative seems foreign and frightening. You’re the highest ranking member of the GAR. I believe if you set the example—show that it is nothing to be ashamed or afraid of—others will follow.”

Fox stared hard at Riyo, his eyes deep and unsettling in their intensity. She worried if she’d mortally offended him, but couldn’t imagine why.

“No, ma’am.”

“Pardon?”

“No, I won’t retire.”

Riyo’s eyebrows climbed high onto her forehead. This was the first time Fox had ever refused her anything. She’d known this might be a thornier issue than she understood, but she’d never imagined outright refusal.

“I know the legislation is not yet passed, but I can personally guarantee you lodging and a salary upon your discharge. You can even stay on as my bodyguard, if you’d like. It would purely be an opportunity for you to lead the way for your fellow soldiers.”

“I understand that, ma’am. I still won’t retire.”

Riyo stared hard at the inscrutable Commander, his passive expression betraying none of his reasoning. “Truly? I won’t force you, but is there any chance you might be persuaded?”

“None, ma’am.”

Riyo held his gaze for a long moment, then let her face fall into her hands in defeat. “If I can’t convince the one clone I know personally to retire from the GAR, then what chance do I have of convincing anyone else? This whole proposal is doomed to fail, isn’t it?”

“...I’m sorry, ma’am, I didn’t mean to upset you-“

“It’s not your fault. It’s important the people around me be honest with me and keep me grounded.”

“No, I-” Fox started, then cut himself off.

Riyo looked up at him through her fingers and was surprised by the unprecedented sight of Fox at a loss for words. His jaw ticked nervously and his brow furrowed, his brown eyes looking soft and uncertain.

“Your plan is a good one, Madam Chancellor,” he said eventually. “My reasons for not resigning are… specific to me. Please don’t take my personal issues as a fault in your legislative agenda.”

“...Then why…?”

The vulnerability vanished from Fox’s face, and he got to his feet, putting his helmet back on. “You’ll be able to find someone else to be the first to retire, ma’am. I’d suggest speaking with Commanders Cody or Thorn.”

Riyo narrowed her eyes at him as he retreated to his corner of the living room, tempted to order him back but knowing she’d get nothing from him like this.

Riyo slumped back into the couch, closing her eyes and just breathing for several long minutes. Then she braced herself and hopped up from the couch, ready for another late night of writing memos, urgent phone calls, and digging into budgets. Maybe her plans wouldn’t work, but there was no direction to go but forward.


	3. Chapter 3

Fox got one day off every two weeks, and if you asked him that was already too much. This time, though, he was happy to have a free day for once. It gave him an opportunity to work out something he’d let lie for too long.

“So why’d you invite me out?” Rex asked from across the table Fox had found them at 79’s. “I assume this isn’t a social call.”

“I wanted to talk to you about your friend. ARC-5555.”

Rex looked flatly across the table at Fox. “You mean Fives?”

A server handed Fox a drink and he took a long pull from it before setting it down. He usually wasn’t one for alcohol, but he was off duty and he figured this conversation would be a lot easier drunk. “Yeah,” he said, wiping his mouth. “Fives.”

“I don’t know what there is to say,” Rex said. “He’s dead. You made sure of that. Sir.”

“Have you looked into what he was babbling about? When he died?” Fox said, choosing not to rise to Rex’s bait.

Rex glowered at Fox, but Fox only passively soaked in his anger. This was what he had expected, and he was prepared for it.

“I tried, but there’s not much there. I made a report but I don’t think anyone’s ever going to see it.”

Fox leaned back in his seat, eyes going distant as he remembered that day. The ARC trooper had had a wild, unhinged look about him—exactly what Fox would look like if he lost himself, too. “Chancellor Palpatine told me to bring him down. He told me very specifically. I think there must have been something to it for the Chancellor to devote his individual attention.”

“Look, I get it. You were just following orders, and I understand you can’t exactly disobey an order from someone like Chancellor Palpatine,” Rex said. “I don’t blame you, but I also don’t want to talk about it. Especially with you.”

Fox set his drink down and levelled a serious look at Rex. “I’m not here to ask for your forgiveness. That would be a waste of both of our times. I’m here to do right by a brother who was wronged, and to make sure that his claims are looked into. He was suspicious of Chancellor Palpatine before anyone else was, and I think he might have been onto something.”

Rex set his jaw, his eyes narrowing at Fox as he considered Fox’s words. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to find any more than I did. Fives went to Kamino with Tup, the trooper who went crazy and killed that Jedi. Something happened on Kamino, and Fives broke out. Then he ended up on Coruscant. You know the rest.”

“And did you ever find any evidence for what he said? About the mind control chips?”

“The Kaminoans fully admitted to the existence of the chips, they just said they didn’t have anything to do with mind control,” Rex said with a shake of the head. “But… I also didn’t look as hard as I could have. We were in the middle of a war, and I was deployed again only days after Fives’ death.”

“Well, we’re both in a better position to look into it now.”

The server finally came with Rex’s drink, and Rex thanked her before taking a careful sip. He considered Fox for a long moment, the neon lights of the club reflecting dully off of his well-worn armor. “Why are you doing this, Commander? And why now?”

A glib response—something about duty or responsibility—nearly rolled off of Fox’s tongue. Then he realized he had no reason to hide from Rex. It might even be freeing, to tell someone at least some of his thoughts. One of the benefits of having clone brothers was that they were relatively likely to understand your point of view.

“I served directly under the former Chancellor for three years,” he said, Palpatine’s pleasant, hateful face appearing in his mind’s eye. “He had absolute control over my life and the lives of my men, and he had the craftiest, most insidious mind I’ve ever seen. If there was any scheme he put into play that had the potential to outlive him, I want to root it out and destroy it.”

“Hmmm,” Rex said thoughtfully, leaning back in his seat and staring blankly at his near-full drink. “I’m in, if you’re looking for help. Fives… Fives gave his life to tell me what he knew. I owe it to him to see this through til the end.”

“I’m not asking for help, but if you’re offering I welcome it. It will probably take time to investigate. We might have to go to Kamino.”

Rex grimaced distastefully—an expression Fox understood well. Some troopers looked on Kamino with fondness or protectiveness as their home planet, but more and more it was starting to feel like the beginning of Fox’s indoctrination.

“That’s fine,” Rex said. “And the new Chancellor… is she for real?”

Chancellor Chuchi’s graceful, dignified features replaced Chancellor Palpatine’s in Fox’s mind, and he smiled. He wasn’t certain of much in this new, post-war world, but this was not a difficult question to answer. “Yes. She is. You might even be able to do some good on this committee of hers.”

“Alright then, I look forward to it. It’s not my preferred way of fighting, but you don’t always get to choose how you’re used, do you?”

Fox thought of the past three years of his life spent coordinating security details, fielding citizen complaints, and kowtowing to a corrupt Chancellor, and he had to agree with Rex. He raised his glass to Rex and smiled bitterly. “To being used.”

“To being used.”

* * *

Fox seemed agitated when he relieved Deadeye after his day off at 0000, yet another piece of garbage dumped on the top of Riyo’s trash heap of a day. She’d been forced by her packed schedule to skip lunch _and_ dinner, and her final meeting of the day had involved an angry Mon Mothma explaining _exactly why_ the voluntary service bill had actually been a failure.

_You gave opponents of clone rights the opportunity to look good without having to vote for anything of substance. We needed to attach the voluntary service clause to a bill with real teeth, to pressure senators into either supporting a real program with funding or looking like they support slavery!_

Riyo groaned as she stared at her datapad, Senator Mothma’s words echoing over and over again throughout her overtired mind. She had to admit that Mothma had a point.

Fox stalked about the room on his security routine, his presence more dour than normal, and Riyo didn’t have the patience for that tonight.

“Can you please _stop that?_ ” she asked, head held in her hands.

Fox rose from where he crouched on the floor, inspecting the sliver of space between the bottom of the door to Riyo’s balcony and the carpet. “Stop what, ma’am?”

“Just… _that_ ,” Riyo said, gesturing in his general direction unhelpfully. “The pacing, the brooding.”

“I can’t help my face, Madam Chancellor.”

Riyo stared at him like she was seeing him for the first time. “Did you… did you just talk back to me?”

Fox’s back stiffened and he froze midway through his inspection of her coat closet. “I wouldn’t dream of it, ma’am.”

Riyo frowned at his back. “Really? Well that’s too bad.”

She waited for him to respond, but he didn’t say anything. _Back to the duracrete wall, it seems_ , she thought.

With a sigh, she sat down to a stack of security clearances she needed to sign off on—tedious but important work. She turned her entertainment system on to a holodrama, confident that the distraction wouldn’t render her incapable of signing her name. The drama she first turned to was an old one that Riyo had already seen several times before—it was a favorite of her mother’s—but it was just the thing to provide background noise to Riyo’s work.

She got into a groove, her pen whipping across the flimsiwork with expert precision and speed, her ears barely registering the show but taking comfort in the sound nonetheless. Then she got to a clause in one contract that required actual, focused attention, and she turned the show off.

The sound of shuffling feet came from behind her, and she paused, barely resisting the urge to look back. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be.

She finished reading the clause, arriving back at the more mundane parts of the contract, and clicked the entertainment system on again. In the world of the holodrama, Waya’s father was threatening to cut off his inheritance if he didn’t break things off with his girlfriend, a mute woman he’d met once when they were both hospitalized as children. It was mawkish, overwrought, and preposterous, but there was comfort in the familiarity and heightened emotions.

A tickle emerged in the back of her throat, and Riyo let loose a series of hacking coughs. _Am I getting sick? Shoot, if I-_

Riyo’s thoughts cut off as a muffled noise of frustration sounded from the back of the room. She froze, eyes flitting to the side though of course she couldn’t see behind her. She narrowed her eyes and an idea came to her. An experiment, so to speak, to test her hypothesis.

She set her flimsiwork aside and sank back into the couch, crossing her arms as she started paying more attention to the show. Waya had started feeling faint and coughing up blood, and he was on his way to the doctor for a diagnosis.

The doctor set his datapad down, a sober expression on his face. “ _I’m sorry, Mr. Chee, but it appears you have-_ ”

Riyo flipped the channel.

The unmistakable creak of plastoid armor sounded behind Riyo again. She turned around a triumphant look on her face.

“I knew you were watching!”

Fox stared straight ahead, his helmeted face betraying no reaction. “I’m always vigilant, ma’am.”

“No, no. I’m not letting you off the hook. You were watching the show.”

Silence.

She narrowed her eyes at him, waiting, but he still said nothing.

“Fine,” she said, turning around and tossing her hair. “Then I won’t tell you Waya’s diagnosis.”

She turned the holo back on and Waya was on the floor crying, distraught from the doctor’s news. His girlfriend Shenna kept trying to reach him, but he wouldn’t respond. The scene was long and drawn-out, and nobody mentioned exactly what was wrong with Waya.

“...Is it Dantari Flu?” Fox asked.

Riyo allowed herself a smirk of victory, but she made sure it didn’t show when she turned around. “No.”

“...What about Pyroliosis?”

Riyo scrunched up her face. “ _Pyroliosis?_ He’s a businessman, do you really think he’s hanging out in zenium mines?”

Fox sighed, the sound exaggerated by the helmet’s vocoder. “Just tell me.”

“So you admit you want to know?”

“Why else would I be asking?”

Riyo grinned, her eyes sparkling in genuine pleasure. “It’s liver calcification.”

Fox was silent a long moment. “Oh. That’s… not very interesting.”

“This show already has a trauma-induced muteness, long-lost loves, disownment, orphans, and terminal illness, and you think it needs more drama?”

“Hmm,” Fox said, his stance shifting slightly. “Well when you put it like that, maybe not.”

Riyo let out a full-bellied laugh, the first she’d indulged in in a long time. “I don’t mind if you watch the show with me, Fox. It’s kind of nice. It almost feels like having a friend over.”

Fox took a while to respond again, and Riyo had the distinct sense that that was not the mood he was going for. “As you say, ma’am.”

Riyo’s mouth twisted and she turned back to her flimsiwork, reminding herself that this was still progress. She sighed as she recognized the next item up on her to-do list: read Senator Orn Free Taa’s budget proposal. It was complicated and he was particularly long-winded, but it had to be done.

She looked back up at the holodrama, eyes considering. Shenna had gotten ahold of Waya, but he was trying to break things off with her to spare her the pain of losing him to his illness. She turned up the volume and got back to work.

Behind her, she heard the smallest hum of approval. She allowed herself a secret smile and settled in for a long night.

* * *

“Brom, you sure the power is off on all those battle droids?” Bacara asked through his comm, nerves alight as he made his way carefully through the Separatist cruiser.

“ _Yes, sir. Nothing on this boat should turn on unless it has an independent power source._ ”

“Hmm. About as good a guarantee as we can get,” Bacara said, signaling his boarding team to advance to the next hallway.

The Separatist cruiser was eerily quiet with all the droids powered down, their metallic corpses resting soundlessly in the sterile hallways. They’d done this the safe way, disabling the cruiser’s power from afar then waiting for all the droids to run out of power before boarding. It was the kind of tactic that wouldn’t work in the height of the war when the enemy could call for backup, but now that so few Separatist fighting forces remained it was the best option.

They made their way slowly and methodically towards the vault, a fortified room near the center of the ship. That was where the cargo was supposed to be, the cargo they meant to prevent from reaching Count Dooku’s hands. There was a chance the Seppies had destroyed the cargo before they’d run out of power, but it was a risk Bacara was willing to take if it saved clone lives. Either way, whatever it was wasn’t getting to Count Dooku.

At length they blasted their way into the triple-sealed vault, ready for anything on the other side. All that greeted them was a single cryo-stasis pod, in the middle of the large room and attached to a small, independent generator. Inside the pod slept a single clone trooper.

Bacara stood in front of the pod, his nose only inches from the troopers.

“What do you think, sir?” Solus asked, blaster held at ready.

Bacara’s eyes narrowed and he considered, hand on chin. “Not sure… Just one clone trooper? Not even an officer. This is probably an intelligence situation.”

“Sir?”

“This trooper had information Count Dooku wanted. Bring him aboard.”

They brought in the clone engineers and carefully detached the pod from its power source. The engineers brought the pod aboard the _Venator_ , and Bacara sent a transmission to General Mundi for more instructions. The General was on Coruscant for some kind of Jedi meeting—he’d been away more and more frequently ever since the Chancellor had been deposed.

Bacara explained their findings to the General over holo, and the old Jedi’s translucent blue visage nodded thoughtfully along.

“Should we wait for your return to wake up the trooper, sir?”

“ _I don’t think that’s necessary,_ ” General Mundi said. “ _That poor man has likely been in stasis longer than is good for him. Wake him up and let him know he’s safe._ ”

“And get his debrief on why Count Dooku wanted him?”

“ _Of course_ ,” General Mundi said with an incline of his wizened head. “ _But that isn’t the highest priority. The war is over, Bacara, and it’s doubtful this trooper’s information will be saving any lives_.”

Bacara’s brow furrowed, and he was grateful for his helmet. Why wouldn’t General Mundi want the information as soon as possible? He knew the General didn’t exactly have a head for military strategy, but this was just strange.

 _It doesn’t matter what you think, Bacara_ , he reminded himself sternly. _You follow orders._

“Very well, sir.”

He signalled the engineers to go ahead and, surrounded by a platoon of troopers just in case, the cryo-stasis chamber slowly thawed, then hissed open. The trooper’s visage became more clear and Bacara could see that he was a medic, likely from the 501st judging by his armor color, with regulation brown hair just covering the remains of a tattoo that extended into his hairline above his ear.

The man’s eyes twitched a few times, then flew open.

“What’s going on? Where am I?” he gasped.

Though he was unstable, he didn’t look armed or dangerous, so Bacara stepped up to him, clapping a hand on his shoulder. “You’re safe, soldier. We recovered you from a Separatist cruiser, but you’re in Republic hands now.”

The man’s eyes looked wildly around before finally settling on Bacara. “C-Commander?” he said, eyes flitting to Bacara’s pauldron. “I have news… Urgent news! It can’t wait!”

Bacara’s grip tightened on the man’s shoulders. “What is it?”

“It’s… It’s… Fives. He knew. They said it was a malfunction in our inhibitor chips, but… but they lied.”

“Soldier, do you think you want to sit down and take a breath?” Bacara asked. “Why don’t you tell us your designation number first?”

The routine question seemed to calm the man down and his breathing evened out. “CT-6116. Kix, sir. Medic in the 501st.”

Bacara led him over to a stack of crates in the corner of the storage room in which they’d awoken him. He helped Kix sit down and gave him a minute. As anxious as he was to find out what the medic had to share, overwhelming him and getting garbled intel wasn’t going to help.

“Thank you, sir,” Kix said after he’d caught his breath. “What I found out—the reason they kidnapped me—is that the inhibitor chips in our brains have a secret purpose.”

“Inhibitor chips?”

“Yes. That part’s not a secret, though most clones don’t really know about it. All clones have an inhibitor chip in their brain, supposedly to regulate the more violent tendencies of our donor.”

Bacara supposed that made sense, though he didn’t really like the feeling of it.

“What nobody knew, except probably some Seppies, is that the inhibitor chips have a secret function,” Kix continued. “If a certain order is given to a clone, they will execute the Jedi, no questions asked. No trial, no questioning, and no ability by the clone to resist.”

“ _What?_ ”

Kix nodded, his eyes going wide as if realizing the enormity of the information all over again. “There was a malfunction and one of the clones executed the order early. You probably heard about it—General Tiplar?”

Bacara nodded. All the commanders had been briefed on that strange event and told to look out for any potential issues in their own battalions. General Tiplar’s death had something to do with these inhibitor chips?

“Somebody’s setting us up to kill all the Jedi on a single word,” Kix said.

“Are you certain of this?”

“Yes, sir. If you give me some medical equipment I can even show you. It’s in all of us. Just give me any clone and I’ll point you right to it. It’s called Order 66.”

“That’s… alarming, soldier.”

The soldiers who stood at the ready around Bacara and Kix murmured amongst themselves. Solus stepped up to Bacara and leaned down, keeping his voice low. “Sir, I can contact General Mundi immed-”

“No,” Bacara said, holding up a hand. “No, we need to investigate further first.”

“But sir-”

“Don’t you understand, Solus? If the Jedi were ever to turn on the Republic, who could stop them? They’re nearly unkillable and have huge political sway in the capital. This chip proves that we were meant as a failsafe, in case the Jedi ever went rogue.”

“The Jedi going rogue? That’s preposterous.”

“That’s exactly what we would think, because we’ve been trained to follow them. So if a need ever arose to bring them in, it might require some extra help to do so,” Bacara said.

Solus’s eyes grew wide. “You’re suggesting that this chip that Kix is talking about might be a _good_ thing?”

Kix shook his head frantically. “No way. It’s a Separatist plot, or, or… or something. They had Fives killed because he found out.”

“We have to share this with the General. There’s no way around it.”

“And we _will_ ,” Bacara said firmly. “But we need to investigate first. This could be a failsafe that the Republic itself built in to protect itself. And who do we serve, ultimately? The Republic, _not_ the Jedi.”

“If you say so…” Solus said.

“I do. Now let’s get Kix to the medbay. Let’s see what this chip is all about.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for security lockdown type situations and anxiety over traumatic memories.

Riyo took a bite of pastry and glared at the data pad in her other hand, expertly navigating the corridor with her peripheral vision as she read. “Hmmmm.”

“Commander Cody said he’d send another report in a week’s time, but he doubts we’ll see a huge shift in the numbers,” Maja said.

Riyo sighed. “I understand, thank you.” She’d known that most clones were unlikely to voluntarily leave the GAR, but the numbers in Commander Cody’s report were even worse than she’d feared. Barely 0.1% of has chosen to leave.

“I can’t say I blame them,” Maja said. “What would I do if someone dropped me off on a random planet with no job and no money?”

“They’re waiting for Senate support. At least, I have to hope many more of them will accept retirement if programs and resources are made available to them. Which reminds me—Maja, can you ask Senator Sadeas to attend the Armed Services Committee tomorrow? She’s on the Education Council and I’d appreciate their cooperation on developing a job training program.”

“Certainly, ma’am. She was right back in that conference room—I’ll see if I can catch her now.”

Maja hurried down the hallway and Riyo returned to her datapad, reading it through once more in the hopes that further absorption might magically summon a solution to her mind. Commander Fox keyed open the lift for her and she entered without looking up from her reading. Then, just as the lift started its ascent towards her office, it jolted to a stop.

Fox immediately emerged from the shadows, placing a firm hand on Riyo’s shoulder and raising his other hand to the side of his helmet. “Understood. Execute a full lockdown now.”

Riyo’s heart started to race. “What’s going on?”

He moved to the control panel in the corner and punched in a series of codes, answering without breaking his concentration. “There’s a security breach in the lower levels. I’m taking you to a safe room on a private level of the Senate inaccessible except by this lift with my security code. We’ll wait there until we get the all clear.”

“Is it serious?” Riyo asked, fingers curling tightly around the datapad still clutched in her hands.

“We don’t know anything yet, Madame Chancellor, but we have to take all threats seriously.”

The lift started to move again, coming to a stop at a floor with no number displayed. The doors hissed open onto a bare, utilitarian hallway with two troopers posted on either side. They saluted her and Fox, but Fox ignored them, grabbing Riyo by the elbow and practically carrying her down the hallway.

They entered an intimidating, triple-sealed door at the end of the hall and Fox locked the door behind them, activating a ray shield over it for extra protection. Heart still racing and adrenaline pumping, Riyo looked around at the small, windowless room he’d locked them in. There was a couch and a refrigerated chest labelled “provisions,” and that was it. Trying to calm down, Riyo sat herself in the corner of the couch and drew her legs to her chest.

She sat in suspense, breathing in and breathing out and with each inhalation wondering what was going on outside of their bunker. It was just standard procedure, she knew that. She’d been in the Senate building during lockdowns before and usually it was a simple misunderstanding. A visitor forgot to leave his blaster at home or a protestor decided to make a scene or someone set the fire alarm off by accident—none of them had represented a real threat to the Senate. She knew this, yet she feared.

 _You’ve meddled in my affairs for the last time, Riyo Chuchi_. The rasping voice sounded in the back of her mind, reminding her that there could be spies, secrets, enemies—anywhere.

Fox paced back and forth in front of the door, his head tilted forward and his grip tight on his blaster. The steady thud of his boots reverberated through Riyo’s head like a pounding headache, the second heartbeat doing nothing to slow her racing pulse.

“Please stop pacing,” she said, holding her head in her hands.

The steps stopped, their even beat replaced by an even more unbearable silence. How was it possible that the absence of sound could be even louder than its presence?

“Um… Um… So what do you think it is this time? The Trandoshan senator forgot to leave his vibroblade at home again?” she asked, chuckling weakly.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything,” Fox said, not acknowledging her joke in any way.

 _Well I can’t say I blame him_ , Riyo thought miserably to herself. _It was a pretty terrible joke._

The quiet continued, and Riyo took to cracking her knuckles, moving one finger at a time and hearing her mother’s annoyed reprimand in her head as she did so. _You’re going to get arthritis, I swear!_

She looked up at Fox and saw only the back of his white-and-red armor, his posture perfectly straight and his body unmoving. He stared forward at the ray-shielded door, rifle held at the ready and stance completely controlled. He might as well have been a droid.

“Can you please just say _something?_ ” she said, harsher than she meant to. “I’m scared, and you’re the only one here.”

He turned to her, shoulders tilted back like she’d bit him. “Yes ma’am! ...What would you like me to say?”

“I don’t know, anything that doesn’t involve shooting or hostages or death.”

Fox paused, as if her requirements were simply too difficult to fulfill. “...There’s a new batch of clones coming from Kamino next week.”

It occurred to Riyo that Fox didn’t have much to talk about outside of his life in the military, and that struck her as sad. It was also unfortunate for her, since the thought of more soldiers the Republic never should have conscripted and couldn’t afford to pay did little to calm her nerves. The part of her motivated by guilt wanted to let the matter drop and leave the poor Commander alone, but the part of her whose mind was spiraling with nagging anxiety won out.

“Why are more coming? I thought we stopped production,” she said.

“You did, ma’am, but it takes nine years for clones to be ready for combat. Production began on the clones arriving tomorrow nine years ago.”

Riyo winced. “Let’s… let’s not use the word ‘production,’ shall we?”

“...It was the word you first used, ma’am.”

“I’m aware, but let’s not use it anymore.”

“As you say, ma’am.”

They both fell silent, and Riyo curled even farther into the cushions of the musty couch. It smelled like mildew with a faint whiff of industrial cleaner, and she wondered when it had last been used. The Senate Dome was an ancient building, and it had witnessed many a coup or otherwise traumatic incident in its long history. She wondered if anyone had died in here, unable to escape the vault that was supposed to protect them, trapped in their own tomb.

“I went to a bar last week,” Fox blurted out, interrupting Riyo’s circling disquiet.

“What?”

Fox shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “...My apologies, ma’am, I was trying to think of something to distract you.”

She stared blankly at him for a moment, trying without success to imagine Fox letting loose in a nightclub. “...Well? How was it?”

He was still helmeted but she imagined she could hear the grimace in his voice. “Not great. I don’t like alcohol.”

“Then a bar seems like an odd choice for an evening out.”

“I was meeting with a colleague.”

“What for?” Riyo asked, trying to drive the less than scintillating conversation to a topic compelling enough to distract from what might be happening outside their little bunker.

“To talk. About the past.”

“...The past?”

“Yeah.”

The climate control clicked on, filling the empty room with a low, steady hum. The elaboration Riyo waited patiently for never came. Well, perhaps she wasn’t waiting that patiently.

She huffed. “You know what? Just don’t say anything. If you’re not going to say anything of substance I prefer the silence.”

Fox stared at her for a moment, then turned to the door, his back to her. He stood there, completely still, staring at the wall, and Riyo realized she’d ordered him both to stop pacing and to stop talking. He didn’t have many other options to pass the time.

She sighed and, with some effort, uncurled herself from her tightly-wound ball. “Fox.. Will you sit here please?” she said, patting the couch next to her.

Fox turned around, his head tilting first toward the cushion on the couch and then towards Riyo. “I’m on duty.”

“I know, but you can hear the comms through your helmet, right? And there are at least a dozen troopers just outside. If something is headed for us, you’ll know with enough time to get off the couch.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He walked towards her like he was stepping through a minefield and carefully lowered himself onto the couch.

“I’m sorry for snapping at you,” Riyo said, voice soft. “I wasn’t like this before. Nobody thought I could, but I handled negotiations with the Talz without breaking my composure. Our people were on the brink of war with them, but I was able to take it in stride. But ever since I found out about Chancellor Palpatine… Ever since I had to look him in the face and pretend I didn’t know, hope that he couldn’t somehow tell… I don’t always handle the fear very well.”

“Chancellor Palpatine was a frightening man.”

Riyo nodded. “I suppose you would probably know that better than most.

She looked down at the hands in her lap and fiddled with her fingers. She didn’t like anyone knowing about this weakness, but she supposed if it was Fox it was alright. He’d probably already guessed from her nightmares, anyway.

“I don’t deserve to be the role model you’re looking for,” Fox said.

“What?” Riyo said, not following the transition in Fox’s thoughts.

“You wanted someone to be the first to leave the GAR, right? I don’t deserve to be that person.”

Riyo furrowed her brow. “What do you mean? You have an excellent service record, and-”

“I have an excellent service record because I did everything Chancellor Palpatine asked me to do.”

“But why would that-” Riyo cut herself off, Fox’s meaning dawning on her midway through her sentence. “Oh. I see.”

Fox took his helmet off, resting it bottom-up on his lap so he could still hear the faint sounds of the comms coming through. He ran a hand through his thick hair and his shoulders sagged. “Captain Rex doesn’t like me because I shot his friend on the Chancellor’s orders.”

“Oh! A… a civilian?” she said, trying to sound as non-judgmental as possible.

Fox shook his head. “No, a clone. An ARC trooper named Fives.”

“Do you know why the Chancellor asked you to kill him?”

“No. He told me that Fives had tried to kill him, but I have no idea if that’s true or not. With the former Chancellor… there was always an angle. I thought it wasn’t my place to question his orders, so I’ve followed hundreds— _thousands_ —of orders having no idea if they were for the good or the Republic or not. For all I know every single one of them was a cruel, sadistic act done on behalf of a madman.”

His words sank in slowly, the horror of their meaning taking time to settle in Riyo’s mind. What would it be like to know that everything you’d done in the past three years might have been in service to an evil, corrupt plot? Realizing the degree to which Chancellor Palpatine had manipulated the Senate to his own ends had felt like that to a certain extent, but it didn’t approach the kind of control Fox was talking about.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “As far as you knew following his orders was the right thing to do. He was the highest representative of the Republic.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Fox said, his eyes flashing. “I used to believe that but not anymore. If I receive an order that is amoral, I will not follow it.”

“How can that not be an excuse? I _anyone_ has an excuse, it’s-”

“I understand that, but claiming that I never had a choice isn’t acceptable. It takes away my ability to think for myself. It takes away my belief in myself as a full person.”

Riyo fell silent, nodding slowly as she processed his words. She might not agree, but she could understand where he was coming from.

“...What does this have to do with refusing to leave the GAR?” she asked eventually.

Fox’s hands flexed around the base of his helmet, his amber eyes staring steadily into its depths. “It’s a chance for a redo, of sorts. A chance to serve a different Chancellor—one I believe in. A chance to try to fulfill my duties again but this time without ceding my integrity over to someone else.”

“I… understand,” Riyo said, though of course she couldn’t truly. But the part she understood was enough. “I won’t ask you to resign again.”

“Thank you.”

She looked sideways at him, then let her gaze fall to her lap. “I…” she wrung her hands. Then sat up straight and looked him in the eye. “I promise I will do everything I can to be a Chancellor worthy of your loyalty and protection.”

“I know,” Fox said, the corner of his mouth turning up to the smallest degree. “I wouldn’t have requested this post otherwise.”

The beginnings of an answering smile grew on Riyo’s face, then crackling words emanated from Fox’s helmet, capturing his attention. He shoved the helmet on and got to his feet, standing still for several beats while he listened.

“We’ve got the all-clear,” he said, motioning for Riyo to follow him.

“Oh! Well…” She’d almost forgotten about the lockdown, somehow. She supposed she had to thank Fox—his attempts to distract her had ultimately succeeded.

Feeling almost dizzy from the sudden change of pace, Riyo gathered her datapads up in her arms and followed Fox out of the room. The troopers outside saluted her as they made their way back to the lift, and Riyo tried to nod and smile back encouragingly, disoriented as she was.

The lights of each floor flashed across Riyo’s face as she took the lift down to her next meeting, each flash illuminating Fox’s face beside her. He was the same, but somehow his eyes seemed more expressive, his skin more organic. He was a living, breathing Human. He’d been born, grown up among his peers, and struggled to get through his day-to-day life. And one day he would die, too, like any other Human or near-Human. Riyo was grateful that day had not been today.

In only ten minutes she was back in a conference room, fielding questions about the budget and negotiating terms on a spending bill. Her mind still buzzed with thoughts of Fox and the guilt and regret he’d shared with her. If she were him, she didn’t think she’d have the discipline or endurance to try to set things to right. She didn’t think she’d have the courage to face her past and stare down her mistakes day after day.

A door slammed particularly loudly behind one senator as he entered the room, and Riyo jumped, losing her train of thought for a moment and looking down at her pile of datapads in confusion.

 _I should ask for a recess_ , she thought to herself. _I’m a mess._

Then she felt Fox’s presence behind her, reassuring and confident. He believed in her. He’d been broken and abused by another in her exact position, but he was willing to do it all again for her.

Riyo got back to work.

* * *

Usually Fox went right to bed as soon as his shift ended. A sleep-deprived guard was a sloppy guard, and Fox’s shifts were long. Back when he’d still commanded the Guard, he’d operated on a lot less sleep, but he’d also never acted as anyone’s personal guard. A well-rested mind was essential to a job that combined a need for constant attentiveness with mind-numbing boredom in that unique way guard duty did.

For all those reasons Fox’s typical routine after the shift change involved dragging himself to his quarters, a quick trip to the ‘fresher, then bed. But tonight he’d need to make an exception.

Fox sat down at the personal communications terminal in his quarters. He hadn’t used it much since Commander Thorn had taken over his duties with the Guard, but it was still here. _Just waiting for me to reach out to my many friends,_ Fox thought to himself, chuckling at his little joke. Although he supposed today that wasn’t a joke, since he’d received a message just yesterday from Bacara asking for Fox to comm him.

A distant memory from commander training on Kamino returned to Fox, bringing him back to endless storms and even more monotonous drills.

_“CC-1010! What do you think you’re doing?” Ouijan Bataar yelled from the platform above._

_Fox lay immobilized on the ground of the training arena, the practice rounds from the battle droids having incapacitated him. “Our orders were to hold our ground no matter what, sir!”_

_“Well holding your ground isn’t much use if you’re dead,” the cantankerous bounty hunter said._

_“Even so, a commander can’t ignore orders from his superiors. Perhaps my death bought another battalion the time they needed to advance.”_

_Ouijan rolled his eyes and jumped down from the platform, landing right next to Fox. He kicked Fox’s paralyzed side. “That’s very poetic, soldier, but save that kind of attitude for the troopers. You’re in_ commander _training. You need to think for yourself. You need to be willing to improvise.”_

_Bly, Cody, and Bacara murmured amongst themselves from somewhere above Fox, and Fox gritted his teeth. It was about the only movement he was capable of, anyway._

_“I understand that, sir, but I will only improvise how to achieve my objectives. I won’t improvise what those objectives are. We serve the Republic, not ourselves.”_

_“You don’t seem to be getting it-” Ouijan said, his foot pulling back for another kick._

_“I agree with CC-1010, sir!” a clone voice called from above._

_Fox craned his neck as much as he could manage, catching Bacara’s face looking down at him._

_“Oh do you, CC-1138?”_

_“Yes, sir. Unwillingness to adapt is weakness, but choosing to follow orders out of principle isn’t.”_

_Ouijan crossed his arms across his broad chest, his beady eyes narrowing. For a moment, Fox thought he might have been convinced, that he might relent-_

_“Ok then. Both of you, 100 laps. Now.”_

Legs aching just at the memory, Fox chuckled to himself again. That was two chuckles in one evening; telling Chancellor Chuchi about Fives must have really loosened him up. Thoughts of the Chancellor brought an uncomfortable warmth to his cheeks as embarrassment paired with a strange sort of lightness accompanied the recollection. Some level of emotional distance was helpful in discharging his duties as a bodyguard, but there was something nice about getting to know the Chancellor better.

The communications terminal pinged insistently at him, and Fox remembered his purpose. He had no idea what Bacara wanted to talk about, but he knew it wasn’t wise to delay. Bacara was a man after Fox’s own heart, and he wouldn’t want to meet up over trivial nonsense.

Fox punched in Bacara’s holo code and Bacara immediately answered, appearing from the waist up above the terminal in luminescent blue.

_“Fox. Good to see you.”_

“You, too, Bacara. You haven’t been back to Coruscant in a while.”

_“Since before we got the new Chancellor.”_

“What’s on your mind?”

The corner of Bacara’s mouth turned upward—he’d always appreciated Fox’s ability to get right to the point. _“Tell me about Chancellor Palpatine’s arrest.”_

Fox paused, his brow furrowing. “...Didn’t you get the reports?”

_“Yes, but I want to hear it from you.”_

“Alright. About six months ago Chancellor Chuchi came to suspect Chancellor Palpatine of corruption. She found evidence that he was actually a Sith—a dark Force user—so she went to the Jedi Council to ask for their help in arresting him.”

_“She went straight to the Jedi Council? Without going through the Senate?”_

“She got the support of several senators first, but she didn’t take it to the broader Senate. She was worried that if Chancellor Palpatine got wind of her investigation he might do something drastic, and she didn’t know who to trust.”

Bacara frowned, one hand tapping slowly on his other forearm. _“It seems like the kind of thing the Senate should have voted on.”_

“You know I don’t comment on politics,” Fox said. One thing he’d learned in his time on Coruscant was how important it was for the GAR to stay out of the legislative fray.

Bacara drew his lips to a line, his gaze hardening. _“What about the day the Chancellor was arrested. You were there, right?”_

“Yes. I’ll never forget it, brother. I was just outside of his office when Generals Windu, Yoda, and Koon arrived with Senator Chuchi and several of her allies. They brought an arrest warrant and a petition signed by around twenty senators, so I let them in.”

_“You just… let them in? It could have been a coup.”_

“No elected official is above the law, not even Chancellor Palpatine, and they had an arrest warrant. I followed them into the study, to make sure everything stayed calm, and I saw it with my own eyes. Chancellor Palpatine attacked the Generals—he nearly killed General Windu.”

_“Hm. That’s… strange.”_

“What’s this about, brother?” Fox asked. He’d indulged Bacara’s curiosity long enough.

Bacara’s intelligent eyes were cool as he carefully chose his wording. _“I’ve come across some information that has me concerned. I’m concerned that perhaps the Jedi Council is too powerful. I’m concerned that the Council, which is supposed to serve the Republic, was able to replace the Republic’s Chancellor.”_

“The Council _is_ powerful, but it was the Republic who gave them that power. And… Bacara, I know you haven’t spent much time on Coruscant, but as someone who worked with Chancellor Palpatine regularly, I can’t blame Chancellor Chuchi for keeping her investigation a secret until the arrest. He was a powerful man who always seemed to know everything.”

_“...Maybe you’re right.”_

“And what is this information you’re talking about? What have you heard?”

Bacara shook his head. _“I can’t tell you now. I’m coming to Coruscant in a few weeks. We should talk then. I’m hoping to get Cody, Bly, and Gree too.”_

“Bacara, what’s going on? What has you so spooked?”

_“In two weeks. I can’t talk openly until we’re in person.”_

“Bacara-”

_“I’ve got to go, Fox. Thanks.”_

The comm shut off. Fox stared into the empty space Bacara’s face had just occupied, his mouth pulling into a frown. _What had that been about?_

Fox sent Bacara several followup messages, but they all went unanswered. Fox gave his terminal a withering stare, the kind of stare that could make any shiny follow his every command, but the terminal remained unimpressed. Bacara was gone.

Unable to command his Bacara’s prompt reply, Fox finished his nightly ritual and climbed into his bunk, pulling the coarse, practical fabric up to his chin. There was nothing more he could do for now, but still Bacara’s words rattled around in his brain, warding away the sweet embrace of sleep.

Fox couldn’t imagine what had spooked his brother so much, but there was one thing he knew for sure. Bacara wasn’t the type to worry over nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I wrote this before everything happened at the US capitol this week 🤷♀️


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the delay in update! I hope you like this chapter!

The shuttle broke through the angry storm clouds of Kamino and an endless ocean stretched out below them. This trip to Kamino was vital to Riyo’s plans for clone transition to civilian life, but Riyo was having trouble concentrating. This place, out beyond her home galaxy and unknown to the Republic just a few years earlier, was a puzzle to be solved. She stared out the window and wondered how a world without dry land could have produced a man as steady and immovable as Commander Fox.

“Is this the first time you’ve been back?” she wanted to ask Fox, buit directed her question to Captain Rex instead.

“No, ma’am. I came back to fight in the Battle of Kamino,” Rex said.

“Did you ever go back just… to visit?”

“No, ma’am,” Rex said with a chuckle. “Wasn’t much time for social calls during the war.”

“Of course.”

The pilot announced the beginning of the landing sequence and Riyo settled back in her seat. Quite unintentionally, her gaze landed on Fox across the aisle from her. He’d been quiet ever since their lockdown together the previous week. Well, quiet _er_. It was as if his confession in the ray-shielded safe room embarrassed him, though to Riyo it only made her respect him more. He had a fortitude and a sense of integrity that was frankly inspiring.

The shuttle touched down on a rainswept platform and Riyo led her small diplomatic entourage out to the Kaminaon welcoming party waiting to meet them. Maja, Fox, and the rest of the security team followed after Riyo and Rex, who would be the official attendants in the negotiations with Prime Minister Lama Su.

Doctor Nala Se stood at the forefront, her wide, cloudy eyes looking down at Riyo as she bowed to her.

“Chancellor Chuchi. We are honored to welcome you to our planet.”

“Thank you, Doctor Nala Se. Captain Rex and I are pleased to discuss the future of the Republic’s relationship with Kamino and the clone army on your beautiful planet.”

Nala Se politely inclined her head in Rex’s direction, then turned and led them from the slick landing platform and into the network of vast, disc-shaped structures that floated above the ocean. Inside, no hint of the storm remained. Everything from the glowing soft light to the curved, white walls belied the chaos of the planet’s natural state, and Riyo wondered at what else the pristine atmosphere might hide.

“You must be tired from your long journey,” Nala Se said. “I can lead you to your quarters now-”

“Thank you, Doctor Nala Se, but I’d prefer to go straight to our tour, as originally planned.”

“Of course,” Nala Se said, her eyes closing slowly in what Riyo recognized as a sign of acquiescence. She waved open another petal-shaped door and gestured for them to pass. “We’ll go first to the nursery.”

She led them through a transparisteel-encased walkway to a second structure, and Riyo wondered what this so-called “nursery” would look like. She imagined eager toddlers running and playing, brown hair bouncing with Fox’s curls, white teeth grinning with Fox’s smile. _Fox’s smile…_ Riyo thought to herself. _Now_ that _would be a sight to see._

“Our nurseries operate at maximum efficiency, as you will see,” Nala Se said, and Riyo remembered that whatever she was envisioning, the nursery was not likely to match her imagination.

The walkway opened up onto a large, domed room filled with rows and rows of pillars of massive, stories-high pillars. Each pillar was studded with transparisteel bubbles that sloshed with liquid inside. Small figures floated in some of the jars, and Riyos eyes went wide. She knew what she must be seeing, but she didn’t allow herself to believe it.

“Are those…?”

“These are our decanting jars. Each clone is gestated safely and identically, with maximum nutritional efficiency and quality control,” Nala Se said proudly, as if this birthing hive wasn’t straight out of some dystopian nightmare.

“Ah…. I see…” Riyo said, struggling to maintain her composure. She should have expected this. How else were clones to be born, after all? And it wasn’t the decanting jars that made her want to lose her lunch, exactly. It was the industrial look of it all, the way these fetuses—these _children_ —were treated like products chugging along down the assembly line. It took every ounce of control she’d gained over her brief but turbulent political career to keep the mild smile on her face.

“Our clones go through an accelerated, five-month gestation period. Then after they are decanted they leave the embryo room and are cared for by our state-of-the-art nursing droids,” Lama Su said, walking them through heavy-duty security doors and into a hallway lined on either side with row after row of tiny, uniform cribs. The lights were low, bathing chubby, peaceful faces in a dim fluorescence.

Riyo’s gaze caught on one particular baby, his round cheeks slack and his mouth open as he lightly snored. She tripped over her feet.

“ _Oh, damn_ ,” she said under her breath.

Fox caught her elbow. “Are you alright, ma’am?”

She waved him away. “I’m fine.”

The baby she’d been watching stirred, his serene expression twisting as he started to cry. He brought his tiny fists to his face and rubbed at his eyes, his shrill wails filling the room.

Riyo started for him, but Nala Se pointed across the room. “Don’t worry, the nursing droid is already on its way.”

Sure enough, a many-armed droid glided on rails hanging above the cribs towards the crying child. One arm sloshed with a nutrient-rich liquid, another was outfitted with scrubbing and drying apparati, and a third and fourth held anthropomorphic hands, presumably for rocking, comforting, or otherwise moving the infants under its care.

“Oh, uh. I’d rather help him myself, since I’m the one who woke him up,” Riyo said.

“There’s really no need-”

“Please.”

Nala Se’s blank face stared judgmentally at Riyo, but she waved the droid away and gestured for Riyo to approach the still-crying child.

Riyo walked over to the tiny crib—thankfully near the walkway—and slowly lifted the infant from it, careful to support his neck with one hand. She tucked his tiny, disproportionately large head into the crook of her arm and supported the rest of him with the other arm, then swayed him back and forth. He looked up at her with giant, confused eyes, and it occurred to Riyo that she might be the first sentient being to ever touch him. She pulled him closer to her and his sobs subsided, giving way to a wide, open-mouthed smile that revealed two front teeth. She smiled in return and kept up her swaying, and he turned his head into her chest, closing his eyes and nuzzling closer.

Riyo had never felt particularly maternal. She wanted children some day, in a distant, hypothetical sense, but she’d never felt the same excitement at the sight of a baby on the street that some women seemed to feel. This was different. There was some maternal instinct there, probably, but it was mostly an intense desire to protect. And intense desire to _love_. Of the thousands of children here, none of them had a single sentient being who cared for them _in particular_ —who was interested in their individual well-being. It broke Riyo’s heart.

The baby was soon asleep, and Riyo placed him gently back in his crib and returned to the walkway. Rex and Fox were staring at her—at least, Fox’s helmet was turned in her direction—and Nala Se had a blank, bored expression on her face.

“Are we ready to continue with the tour?” Nala Se asked.

“Certainly,” Riyo said.

They moved on to a second large, atrium-like room. Thousands of children played below their suspended walkway. At least, Riyo thought it was play at first. When she got a closer look she saw that the children—ages approximately six to twelve adjusted to typical Human standards—were training. They were doing sit ups, pushups, and lunges. They were racing each other, sparring, and practicing rifle drills.

“This gymnasium is where our clones participate in physical training. They are also educated in tactics and the basics of speech, writing, and communication in our flash-classrooms. Clones going into specialties like field medicine or engineering receive additional accelerated training.”

Riyo leaned out over the railing of the walkway and some of the children looked back up before being scolded back into line by either an instructor or a captain in their peer group.

“May I speak with some of them?” Riyo asked.

“...Speak with some of them?”

“Yes. They move in classes together, right? I’d like to talk to one.”

“Yes, that can be arranged,” Nala Se said, typing a few instructions into the comm on her wrist. “We can pull several clones from one of the flash-classes going on up ahead.”

She led them through another set of petal-shaped doors. Beyond lay several large, auditorium-style classrooms. Clones sat at their desks with headsets over their eyes, nodding along to their lectures and absorbing everything their sponge-like brains could handle. Nala Se gestured to one of the droid supervisors and the droid flipped a switch that unclicked the headsets of five clones seated at the end of an aisle. The boys looked around in confusion until the droid walked to them and directed them to where Riyo stood.

The boys dutifully filed out of their classroom and moved to stand in front of Riyo and her entourage, their eyes curious and somewhat defiant in the face of strangers.

“Cadets, show some respect,” Nala Se said. “This is Chancellor Chuchi, the Chancellor of the Republic.”

The boys snapped to attention and saluted sharply.

“Oh, there’s no need for that, boys,” Riyo said.

“It’s an honor to meet you, sir!” one of the boys said, then flushed. “Er… Ma’am… Madam… Chancellor?”

“Ma’am will do just fine, thank you.”

One of the other boys sniggered and the red-faced one punched him in the arm.

“Ow! Cut it out, Bugs!” the one who’d laughed said, rubbing his arm.

“Is your name Bugs?” Riyo asked the boy.

Nala Se frowned, and the boy looked out of the corner of his eye at the imposing doctor. “No, ma’am. My designation is CT-122254.”

“Oh, I understand you have a designation, but you have a name, too, right? Like Captain Rex and Commander Fox here.”

The boy’s eyes darted to Nala Se, then back to Riyo. “Yes, ma’am. My name is Bugs.”

“What a nice name! How did you get that name, Bugs?” Riyo asked.

The boys flush intensified, and he looked to the ground. “I don’t know. It’s just something the other cadets started calling me.”

The boy who’d sniggered earlier piped up. “That’s not true, Madam Chancellor! We call him Bugs because he ate a bug one day in the mess!”

The other boys burst out laughing. Bugs turned back to his brother and punched him in the arm again.

“Enough!” Nala Se said, and the boys snapped back into place.

“It’s alright,” Riyo said. “I think Bugs is a lovely name.”

“Did you say that’s Captain Rex and Commander Fox?” one of the other boys piped up. He had short black hair and inquisitive eyes, and Riyo immediately liked him.

“Yes! This is Commander Fox and Captain Rex here behind me,” she said, moving to the side. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Spinout.”

Captain Rex stepped forward, crouching down to get at eye-level with the kids. “It’s nice to meet you, Spinout. What a fine-looking group of cadets! It’s good to see the future of the GAR is in good hands.”

The boys’ chests puffed with pride, and Spinout turned to Fox, eyes shining with awe. “That’s really Commander Fox? CC-1010? Commander of the Coruscant Guard? Highest-ranking officer in the GAR?”

Fox shifted his weight from one foot to the other, standing there stiffly as if awaiting instructions. Riyo cocked her head to the side and tapped at her temple, shooting him a meaningful look.

He sagged slightly and he raised his hands, lifting his helmet off and clicking it onto his belt. He faced the boys, his discomfort under their adoring gaze obvious in the tension in his shoulders. “Yes, I’m Commander Fox.”

“Wow! I never thought we’d meet him in person!” Bugs said.

Rex moved away to give Fox some space and Fox stepped up to the boys, hands dangling awkwardly at his sides. “It’s good to, uh, meet the next generation of Republic soldiers.”

“What’s it like, being a Commander?” one boy asked.

“Is Coruscant really one giant city?”

“What even _is_ a city?”

“Did you really shoot down a super battle droid with just one Deecee?”

“Whoa, whoa, settle down, troops!” Fox said before they could overwhelm him, and the boys stopped their chatter. “I’ve had my fair share of adventure, but I’ve always had the Coruscant Guard at my back. The GAR is about working together with your brothers, not about individual glory.”

“Will I be able to join the Coruscant Guard?” Spinout asked.

“I, uh, I’m not sure. The war is over and you may not all end up in active service in the GAR-”

“But then what will we do?” asked Bugs, alarmed.

“This is what we were made for!” said another boy.

Riyo’s brow furrowed. This was exactly the problem she was trying to tackle right now, and she wondered how Fox would respond. If she couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer to these boys, what was she supposed to say to adult clones who’d already sacrificed so much in battle?

“Well, there are a lot of different things you could do,” Fox said. “Like… private security. Or bounty hunting.” Riyo raised an eyebrow in his direction, and he quickly amended, “Or you could be a musician. Or even a senator.”

Spinout frowned. “I don’t know anything about being a musician or a senator.”

Fox crouched down in front of him, setting his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “We’re an adaptable bunch. I know whatever you end up doing, you’ll do the GAR proud.”

“Yes, sir!” Spinout said.

Fox fiddled with the pouch at his waist and pulled out what Riyo recognized as security stickers he used to mark people who’d been cleared as visitors for specific senators. He carefully removed one from the flimsi backing and stuck it to the black-haired boy’s chest. “There. That has the logo of the Coruscant Guard on it.”

“Wow! Thank you, sir!”

“Do we get one, too?” Bugs asked.

“Sure. You all do.”

One by one, Fox affixed a Coruscant Guard security sticker to their blue-grey tunics. They looked at him with awe and admiration in their eyes, and though she could see Fox squirm at their hero-worship, she couldn’t find it within herself to disagree with them.

“We really should move on,” Nala Se said, gesturing for the supervisor droid to take the boys back to class.

“It was a pleasure to meet you, boys,” Riyo said.

“Thank you, ma’am!” the cadets chorused back, turning their heads as they marched back to their seats.

They continued on under Nala Se’s watchful eye. Each new sight inspired in Riyo a strange mixture of admiration and horror. Riyo saw more classrooms, a simulation room, a practice range, and the mess—all testaments to the Kaminoans’ skill mass producing sentient life.

It was impressive, in a way. It was also barbaric. It hurt to realize how little she’d thought about the clones and their service during the war. She was convinced that if other senators had seen with their own eyes what clone production actually involved here on Kamino they’d never have agreed to conscription of the GAR, but it was impossible to know. Perhaps she was just making excuses for herself and her colleagues.

Nala Se led them to the guest quarters after their tour. The rooms were luxurious in that sterile, Kaminoan way, but the comforts afforded her only increased Riyo’s somber mood.

“Prime Minister Lama Su will join you at breakfast in the morning, then after that we can commence with the summit,” Nala Se said.

“Thank you, Doctor Nala Se.”

Riyo bid the Kaminoan scientist farewell and retreated into her quarters, where porters had already moved her things.

“Wow, I’m beat. I’m going to find my room and get some rest, if that’s alright with you,” Maja said. “We can go over final notes on the summit tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Riyo said, waving her assistant away. “Everyone get some rest, it’s been a long day.”

Maja, Rex, and the other security staff dispersed to their rooms, and Riyo dragged her heavy feet to the master suite. Fox followed her, always in her shadow. In the dark corners of the room Riyo thought she saw visions of the past, visions of Fox and Rex growing up here. She saw them being decanted from their birthing jars with no fanfare or celebration, with no warm hands to hold them and snuggle them close, welcoming them to the breathing world. She saw them learning to hold a blaster as soon as they could stand. She saw them pushed to their limits by instructors whose only goal was to mold them into tools. She saw them learn nothing except those things that would make them more valuable sacrifices for the Republic.

She stopped in the middle of the private sitting room and turned slowly, shyly around.

“Fox?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

He stood, tall and correct, a few steps behind her in the darkened sitting room. Riyo knew this might be a bad idea, and that it was probably more for her benefit than his, but she couldn’t help it.

“May I hug you?” she asked.

“...Ma’am?”

“I was thinking that maybe only a fellow clone has ever hugged you, and I wanted to thank you and… well… You’re a very good bodyguard.”

Fox was silent for a long, humiliating length of time. She watched for him to take off his helmet, which she thought would be a sure sign he’d accepted her offer. Or request? She wasn’t quite sure which it was, to be honest. But his helmet remained firmly on.

“That’s not necessary,” he said eventually.

Riyo’s cheeks heated. Fox rarely refused anything, but here she was pushing him past his boundaries _again_. What a trial it must be to guard her constantly like he did. She turned from him and scurried towards her room. “Oh, well, my mistake! I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

She slammed the bedroom door behind her and leaned against it. She closed her eyes, unwilling to see a world that had borne witness to her shame. _How humiliating._

She wallowed in the embarrassment for a few minutes, then got up. Fox was far from her only responsibility as Chancellor, and she had work to do. What she’d seen today disturbed her, and though she already planned on halting production on future clones tomorrow at the summit, the tour today had convinced her that she needed to do more.

There was still so much to do, she didn’t have time for dignity. She changed into her soft nightgown, settled down in the plush chair next to her bed, and got comfortable. She had a lot of holo calls to make.

* * *

As soon as Fox’s shift ended he went to find Rex. Normally he liked to be well-rested for his next shift, especially when he was on assignment in a foreign system, but they didn’t know when they’d next have such a convenient excuse to go to Kamino. They had to take advantage of the opportunity now.

“Captain Rex,” Fox said to the clone sitting in the guest suite’s main sitting room, “The porters forgot to bring some of Chancellor Chuchi’s things to the suite. Can you help me go get them?”

“Sure thing, Commander,” Rex said, getting to his feet.

They left together and trekked back through bare, elegant hallways towards where the transport was docked. The white walls were almost hypnotic in their uniformity, and Fox struggled to maintain his focus. 

_ May I hug you?  _

Chancellor Chuchi’s question echoed distractingly in Fox’s head while they walked. What kind of a question was that? He thought he knew the Chancellor well enough to trust her intentions, but what possible purpose could she have?

They passed another patrol of Kamino troopers in the hall, and Fox forced thoughts of the Chancellor from his mind. He’d have all the time in the world to think about her later, he just couldn’t afford to figure out the mysterious workings of her mind right now.

They reached the landing pad and Rex checked for any patrols before waving Fox onto the dock. Fox keyed them onto the ship and went straight for the storage compartment where he’d stashed armor specially painted to match the Kamino Watch. He pulled out the first set and handed it to Rex.

“Thanks.”

Fox shucked his own armor, hating to see his red on the floor, and quickly suited up in the Kamino armor. The grey-and-white plastoid felt strange on his body, and he grimaced at the sight of the emblem of Kamino on Rex’s pauldron. Rex caught his expression and shot him a knowing glance.

“Just doesn’t feel right, does it?” he said.

Fox shrugged. “I never thought I’d be using my expertise to try to get past security, but this is too important to ignore.”

“I agree, brother. Everything’ll be fine. We just slip in, get the information on the inhibitor chip, and slip out. If nothing’s amiss there’s no harm.”

Fox’s nose wrinkled in distaste. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Checking first for any patrolling clones, Fox and Rex left the transport and walked casually into the cloning facility. Fox concentrated on the numbering and labels on each door. He’d memorized the path they needed to take ahead of time, but it was a lot to keep in his head and he hadn’t been to Kamino since his cadet years.

They passed groups of cadets, a few patrols, droids, and even a few Kaminoans on their way, but nobody gave them trouble. It was late and there was less traffic than normal. And more than that, they blended right in—there were thousands of clones here, all going to and fro for various reasons. Guilt stabbed at Fox for deceiving his brothers like this, but he was doing it for them. He and Rex needed to find out if there was any substance to Fives’ accusations, and it was best that they do that involving as few other clones as possible. If they were caught and this went sideways, he didn’t want anyone to be blamed for his actions but him.

The first security hurdle was the thick, ray-shielded blast doors that separated the training portions of the facility from the research area. Rex stopped in front of the doors and started talking casually with Fox about training and when the next batch of cadets would be sent out. As they talked, Fox eyed the security panel next to the door. It was a Ralix Systems XII series armored door. Heavy duty stuff. Thankfully he’d brought just the thing to bypass it.

A patrol of troopers passed by the ray-shielded door, and Rex and Fox continued their small talk until they passed. Once they were out of sight, Fox ducked down by the control panel and pulled out one of several specially-prepared scomps links he’d confiscated over the years from various thieves, bounty hunters, and spies. Some of them had been very creative in getting past Republic security.

He inserted the scomp link and quickly got to his feet, resuming his meaningless conversation with Rex and standing strategically in front of the security panel. After another few minutes, the security panel made an audible _click_ and the doors opened.

Fox and Rex casually fast-walked into the research sector before anyone could ask them their business, and Fox closed the door behind them. He looked around the lifeless white walls and oriented himself to the map memorized in his head. He turned right down a narrow, transparisteel hallway and Rex followed after him. They needed to move quickly and purposefully. Kamino Watch troopers _did_ patrol the research side of the facility, but not as many and their designations were checked regularly. They needed to avoid attracting any kind of attention and finish their business fast.

After a few more turns down identical hallways, they were to the embryo room. With his practiced purposeful stride, Fox walked through the cavernous chamber towards a smaller laboratory in the back, where any processing on embryos before decantation took place. Based on his research and what Rex had heard from Fives, this was the most likely stage during which the inhibitor chips were placed.

The glowing wombs of the decanting jars cast an azure glow over Fox and Rex. Fox chanced a glance up into the honeycomb of embryos and glimpsed a curled up, floating body above him. It was so small and vulnerable, just trying to grow big enough to make it on its own. Fox felt a surge of protectiveness over these beings—his brothers. Whatever it took, he’d try to keep them safe.

The lab that abutted the embryo room was small but stuffed with high-tech equipment and automated processes. Embryos were sucked into the main processing chamber, poked and prodded by an embedded surgery droid, then sucked back into the colony of decanting jars in the primary embryo room.

Fox could see how much their tour earlier had upset Riyo, but until this moment he hadn’t fully understood why. The way the clones were raised was normal to him. It was the only youth he had ever known, something he and millions of his brothers had experienced in exactly the same way. But this, seeing the embryos tweaked with needles and scalpels, being molded into a predetermined destiny—this was something he doubted more than a handful of clones had ever seen before. It shook him, realizing how much the Kaminoans viewed the clones as a commodity.

Anger blurred Fox’s vision, but he shook it away. He couldn’t afford to get distracted. He signalled for Rex to stand watch at the door and approached the large computer next to the processing chamber.

The computer was locked, of course. Fox pulled out an encryption scomp from his belt—a particularly advanced one he’d confiscated from a notorious hacker—and inserted it into the computer’s port. The scomp link immediately hissed and made several loud, grating sounds, black smoke pouring out the back. _Well, that didn’t work._

He had a few other tricks up his sleeve, but that encryption scomp had been his best bet. Except for… But that wouldn’t do. It wasn’t even really an option.

Fox tried a few other things—another scomp link, a passcode he’d caught from one of the guards earlier, General Skywalker’s password, which Rex had helpfully provided—but none of it worked. Cursing under his breath, he pulled his last resort out from where he always kept it—hidden in a secret compartment in the heel of his boot.

It was a slim disc of Haysian smelt with the cog of the Republic engraved across it. It was one of those pieces of ostentation that liked to pretend at humility, just like the Chancellor to whom it had belonged. He opened a tiny keypad on the back side of the disc and keyed in Chancellor Palpatine’s code, a set of numbers that, now that Palpatine was dead, he was the only person living who knew. An advanced micro link whipped out the side of the disc and Fox inserted it into the port and crossed his fingers.

Chancellor Palpatine had had his grasping fingers in many things, and Fox knew he’d arranged for all kinds of security systems and computers to contain a bypass accessible only by his personal key. It was just one more of the many signs Fox should have understood revealed his corruption. He probably should have destroyed it after Palpatine’s death, or at least handed it over to someone in authority, but he hadn’t. That didn’t mean he didn’t hate using it.

The computer beeped cheerily at Fox and dozens of data files popped out of the computer, protruding just far enough for eager fingers to grab. Each file was neatly labelled, and Fox’s eyes scanned over them until they landed on the one that said “inhibitor chip.”

“Bingo.”

“You found it?” Rex asked from the doorway.

“Yeah. I wanted to copy it, but…”

“You’d better just grab it, sir. We’re already pushing our luck.”

“Hmm,” Fox said in agreement. Assuming they made a clean exit, the Kaminoans would discover the file was gone but wouldn’t know who had taken it. It wasn’t perfect but it was what they could manage.

He tugged the file free of the computer, logged out, and stuck the hateful disc of Haysian smelt back into his boot. He managed to fit the datafile in next to it, worried that if he and Rex were questioned it would be easily discovered. Then he stood and headed for the door.

Rex and Fox walked briskly back through the embryo room, and Fox was somehow even more on edge than before. They made it through the embryo room without incident, then it was on to the warren of narrow passageways connecting the various parts of the research wing. A right turn, two lefts, and three more rights. Then they were to the ray-shielded exit.

The door was primarily secured in one direction, so going out would be simple. Fox allowed himself a generous breath of air, his shoulders easing slightly, then he ran right into a clone in Kamino Watch grey.

“Whoa there, soldier,” the clone said, grabbing Fox’s shoulders to steady him. “There aren’t any other patrols scheduled through here right now. What are you doing here?”

Fox looked up into a yellow-and-grey helmet. The clone in front of him had yellow pauldrons marking him as an ARC trooper, which was just Fox’s luck. A trooper who’d spent his entire active duty on Kamino he might be able to fool, but a Rancor Battalion ARC trooper?

Then it hit Fox that he knew this clone. It was Blitz, one of the trio of clone commanders first sent to oversee Kamino’s protection. The only one remaining of the three. Fox had eaten meals with this man, had learned side-by-side during commander training.

“Commander Blitz! Sir! Nerf and I were just coming back from an errand for Nala Se. She’s doing some kind of research on space worms,” Fox said. This was stupid, but all he had left were stupid ideas. He stared into Blitz’s visor through his, willing him to understand though their eyes couldn’t meet through the thick, polarized material.

Blitz stared back soundlessly for a long moment, then nodded. “Space worms, you say? What kind of nightmares has Nala Se dreamt up this time?”

_Nightmares… It looks like he got the message_ , Fox thought. “I’m not sure, sir, but I’m grateful I don’t have to find out.”

Blitz stepped to the side and swiped the door open for them, making their escape even easier than anticipated. He jerked his head, motioning them through. “I’ll expect a full report on this space worm incident later, trooper.”

“Of course, Commander,” Fox said, resisting the urge to sprint through the door.

“Space worms? What the kriff was he talking-?” Fox heard one of Blitz’s companions begin to ask him, but the question was cut off by the shutting of the blast doors behind him.

Fox and Rex continued onwards, Fox’s heart still racing from their near miss.

“What was _that_ all about?” Rex asked through their in-helmet comms. “ _Space worms?_ ”

“Blitz and I were in commander training together. One night when we were still little cadets, I woke up screaming from a nightmare. Blitz was in the bunk above me, so he checked on me to see if I was alright. The nightmare… It was about getting eaten by a space worm,” Fox said sheepishly.

A few choked off chuckles sounded through Rex’s comm, and Fox rolled his eyes. “Laugh if you want. It saved our sorry hides back there.”

“And nerf?” Rex asked once he’d gotten his fill of laughter. “Why was I trooper Nerf?”

“Nerf was Blitz’s nickname for me.”

“I can see why you went for Fox in the end.”

“Yeah. It took a few bruises, but I made sure Fox was the name that stuck.”

They passed through the next few hallways in silence, how close they’d come to getting caught still settling in Fox’s mind.

“Blitz must trust you a lot, to let you pass like that,” Rex said as they finally approached the shuttle.

“Yeah. I had to take a gamble, but I was hopeful. We clones, we have to watch out for each other. We don’t have anyone else.”

“Well, now we have Chancellor Chuchi, too,” Rex said.

Fox keyed in the passcode for the shuttle where they’d stow their grey armor and stolen data file. The gangplank lowered and he followed Rex up it, one ankle stepping slightly differently from the other due to the materials hidden in the heel.

“Yeah,” he said, his thoughts straying to the lilac-haired Chancellor who’d asked permission to hug him earlier that day. “Yeah we do.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is some canon-typical violence at the end of the chapter. also I'M SORRY IT TOOK SO LONG TO UPDATE! The good news is chapter 7 is already halfway done!

Kaminoan breakfast was not to Riyo’s taste. It was all raw fish, squid, and shellfish chopped up and mixed together with some kind of acidic syrup and, as a native of a marshy moon with no oceans, Riyo found it disagreeable. Still, she dutifully slurped down the food and nodded along to Prime Minister Lama Su’s unhurried conversation.

“As you can see, our facilities are state-of-the-art, and the Republic is reaping the benefits of our skilled army,” he said.

Riyo nodded and picked up the last spoonful of her breakfast, hesitating only a moment before putting the tentacled mystery in her mouth. The food they fed the clones at the cafeteria had looked different, like a nutritional paste or some kind of fortified starch. This seafood hash was no doubt a delicacy meant to honor her visit, but she’d honestly prefer the paste.

“This is quite an impressive operation you have here, Prime Minister,” she said. “I look forward to discussing the future of the Republic’s relationship with Kamino at the summit.”

She set her spoon down and left her napkin on top of her plate, signalling that she was done with the meal— _finally_. She’d spent most of the previous night making last-minute preparations with Maja, and she didn’t think she could handle another moment of small talk and crustaceans.

Lama Su inclined his long neck. “Shall we?”

He rose to his feet and Riyo, flanked by Maja, Captain Rex, and Commander Fox, followed him out of the dining hall and into a spare, white conference room. Nala Se, Senator Burtoni and several other Kaminoan dignitaries were already seated inside, and the Prime Minister showed Riyo to her seat at the head of the table. Rex and Maja found their own spots at the far end of the group, and Fox stationed himself at the door.

Lama Su took the chair next to Riyo and cleared his throat, drawing the eyes of all the attendees to him. “I want to thank Chancellor Chuchi for visiting with us today. I am eager to discuss Kamino’s role in the Republic’s military moving forward, and to build upon the foundation of goodwill and trust that we have already established.”

“Thank you for having me, Prime Minister,” Riyo said. She waited for him to extend his welcome to Rex and Maja, too, but he moved right on to business.

“I’ll begin with the basics. As we on Kamino have provided the Republic with an excellent military in the past, no doubt contributing greatly to the Republic’s victory in the war, we believe the Republic would be amenable to extending our contracts. Perhaps the Republic no longer has need of such a large army, but surely some standing military force is necessary for the defense of our systems, and we are also in the process of developing new technologies and personnel specializing in peacekeeping and violence deterrence.”

Riyo’s mouth twisted. The phrase “peacekeeping” had been too-often used throughout the war to justify acts of aggression, and was he really going to completely ignore the clone legislation the Senate had just passed? Senator Burtoni had to have told him.

“The Republic does indeed owe a large debt of gratitude to its clone army,” she said, gesturing to Rex, “who protected citizens and defended our sovereignty at the risk and often expense of their own lives. However, you must understand that, given recent legislation involving the legality of pressing clones into military service, we cannot continue to use your services in the same way.”

Lama Su leaned over the table and laced his long fingers together. “Yes, Senator Burtoni informed us of this legislation. I fail to see why a practice that ensured the Republic’s victory in the war could so conveniently be deemed illegal after the fact.”

“The criticism is valid, Prime Minister, but unfortunately we cannot change the past. We can only try to move forward in a way that is consistent with our values, and creating sentient life only for it to be forced into military service is not consistent with our values.”

Lama Su’s giant eyes narrowed ‘til only a thin slice of grey iris peeked through. “What are you proposing, Chancellor?”

Riyo inclined her head towards Rex.

“All production of clone soldiers needs to end immediately,” Rex said. “The Republic has already paid, so it’s no harm to you. The Republic won’t commission any clone soldiers in the future, either.”

“This is outrageous!” Senator Burtoni said, addressing Riyo and ignoring Rex. “It is an insult to our relationship with the Republic!”

“The Senate’s vote is final,” Rex said. “Kamino is free to do what they wish, but all member systems of the Republic have to abide by Republic laws, which now prohibit the enslavement of any sentient beings for any reason.”

“Where was all this talk of slavery when the Republic ordered the army?” Senator Burtoni demanded. “I must say, Chancellor, this law feels rather pointed. If Kamino is to be singled out like this, perhaps we would not wish to remain-”

Lama Su held up a hand and Senator Burtoni closed her mouth, nodding in deference to the Prime Minister. “Chancellor Chuchi, we of course would wish to remain in the Republic, but you must understand how much our economy is tied to the cloning industry. We have invested decades of education, technology, and infrastructure into this endeavor. What you are asking is not so simple as turning a switch from on to off.”

Riyo nodded sympathetically, though it irked her to no end the way they continued to ignore Rex. “I understand your concern, Prime Minister, which is why I have already negotiated several agricultural contracts on your behalf. The nerf industry is very interested in your work isolating desirable genetic traits. Etrat Industries is also willing to hire Kaminoan geneticists to develop more drought-resistant grains.” Riyo passed a datapad to Lama Su and gave him a moment to look it over. “The current value of these contracts is about 75% of what the clone army generated for Kamino, but I believe these contracts can grow into a sustained economy that does not rely on one product, and no longer requires widespread war to be profitable.”

Lama Su’s dark eyes darted across the screen and he nodded thoughtfully. “We will need time to consider and speak with these contacts of yours before formally agreeing, but I find your proposal to be a compelling one, Chancellor.”

Riyo held back a sigh of relief. Maja had insisted that Kamino valued membership in the Republic enough to play hardball, but Riyo still hadn’t been sure the agricultural contracts would be tempting enough to soothe any hurt feelings. And as abhorrent as she found the Human factory here on Kamino, Riyo still didn’t want the Kaminoans to leave the Republic. For one thing, leaving the Republic would leave them free to create clone armies for _other_ people.

The summit moved on and they first went through the new clone legislation and what exactly it meant. No, cloning wasn’t entirely illegal. Yes, cloning sentient beings for servitude was illegal. Then they went through each of the agricultural contracts line by line and Lama Su and his advisors discussed which ones they could easily take on with minimal capital expense. Lama Su was difficult to read, but Riyo thought she could see a pleased glimmer in his eye as he examined the proposed quotes for each contract. She made a mental note to throw a party for Maja later for pulling so much of that together.

“Well,” Lama Su said after several hours of debate, “You are our customer, so of course we will halt production as you requested. We are tentatively willing to commit to never producing clone soldiers again, but it will take some time before we can formalize the agreement. This was, as you know, the foundation of our economy for some time. We wish to remain in the Republic, but leaving is an option if we feel we are not being treated fairly.”

“I can assure you, Prime Minister, we will do everything we can to ensure that _all_ citizens of the Republic—Kaminoan and Clone alike—will be treated fairly,” Riyo said.

“Excellent. That brings our summit to a close-”

“One more thing, if I may,” Riyo interjected.

Lama Su looked up at her, a frown of mild indifference on his face. “Yes, Chancellor Chuchi?”

Riyo’s eyes darted quickly to Rex at the end of the table, then over to Fox. She hadn’t had a chance to consult them about this part, but she was reasonably sure they’d approve. “As the price for the clones’ production and cultivation until adulthood has already been paid for, the Republic is willing to assume responsibility for the care and raising of all clones aged zero to three effective immediately, and for only half the cost the Kaminoan facility would have spent on their training.”

The grey brows above Lama Su’s eyes rose. “What do you mean, for only half the cost?”

“Your people would pay the Republic to take over the raising of these clones half of the estimated cost of training them here on Kamino. You would still come out ahead, financially.”

Lama Su’s nostril slits flared slightly and his eyes turned over to Senator Burtoni.

“They were created for the Republic. I suppose the Republic can claim them at any time,” Senator Burtoni said.

Lama Su’s expression remained impassive, but years of experience in politics told Riyo what he was thinking. He didn’t like the idea of capitulating to yet another Republic demand, but he was counting credits, and she knew the calculus would end up in her favor.

“If you insist, then of course we are willing to oblige our loyal customer,” he said. “It will take time to sort out logistics, so let’s say tentatively the handover will take place in six months-”

“I’ve already worked out most of the logistics on my end. We should be able to pick up the children in one month.”

A brief silence filled the conference room at her words, and Lama Su stared down at her. “As you wish, Chancellor.”

They closed the summit with all the necessary formalities, and Riyo walked from the room, her shoulders tucked back and her chin held high all the way until they reached the safety of her rooms. Then she let the tension of the negotiations go and her placid expression dropped.

“Oh my goodness, I wasn’t at all sure that was going to work, Maja.”

Maja patted her shoulder. “I told you they’re desperate to stay in the Republic. As an extragalactic planet, the Republic is vital in connecting them to trade and the political life of the rest of the galaxy.”

“Yes, but I really thought demanding all that, plus the younger clones—I was worried they’d reject us just out of spite.”

Maja smirked. “Pride is one thing, but credits are king.”

“You, my friend, are a genius.”

“Who am I to contradict the Chancellor?”

Riyo laughed, but her laugh quickly morphed into a sigh. “And now the work begins. Can you call back our contact with the Child Services Agency on Coruscant? And get in touch with those other agricultural conglomerates we haven’t heard back from yet.”

“On it, boss.”

Riyo started for the office near the back of her quarters, but a low cough turned her attention behind her. Commander Fox was standing there, helmet on and blaster still in hand, his posture stiff and formal. Next to him was Rex, helmetless, with a warm smile on his face.

“Yes, Commander? Captain? I’m sorry, I probably should have asked your opinion on this, first. I just had so many holo calls to make to work things out, and I couldn’t find either of you anywhere-”

“It’s not a problem, Madam Chancellor,” Rex said. “Thank you for caring. I know it means a lot to the boys.”

Riyo smiled at him. “Of course, Captain,” she said, then her smile fell. “After coming here, I couldn’t do nothing. I… I had some idea what it would be like here, but nothing prepared me for actually seeing it.”

“We’re clones. How else do you think we were raised?” Rex said.

“I know, it’s just… different when you actually see the _trichbasa_ stuffed.”

“The what?”

“Oh, it’s a Pantoran phrase. Sometimes you don’t want to see the messy details of how something gets made. It’s… easier not knowing.”

“I’m glad you were willing to stomach it for us, ma’am,” Rex said.

“Ma’am?” Maja said, poking her head back into the hallway from the study. “The Chief Administrator of the Child Services Agency is on the holo.”

“I’ll be right there!”

She bade the two clones a hasty farewell and threw herself right into work. Committing to finding safe and nurturing permanent homes for thousands of young clones had meant taking on a huge amount of logistics in a short time, but she was determined to succeed. The clones deserved nothing less.

* * *

Riyo and Maja toiled late into the night and hardly slept before their scheduled departure the next morning. Riyo spent almost the entire flight back to Coruscant drafting up letters looking for donations and support for the child clones. She’d found enough backers the night before the summit to make the ask, but there were still so many more details to work out and more funding never hurt.

About halfway through composing a letter to a wealthy philanthropist from Bespin, Riyo’s eyes began to droop. She was so _tired_ , if she just rested her eyes a moment she could finish this up. Yes… Just a moment was all she needed...

“Ma’am?” A gloved hand gently tapped Riyo on the shoulder, and she opened her eyes only to find her face smooshed up against the transparisteel of the observation window. She blinked blearily up at Fox, identifying him as the tapper.

“Yes, Fox?”

“We’re starting the landing sequence, Madam Chancellor.”

“Oh…” She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, then hastily swiped at the puddle of drool that had collected on her datapad. “Why didn’t anyone wake me!”

“We were informed that it would be unwise…” Rex said.

“I told them if they did I’d murder them,” Maja said from where she sat in the corner, her gaze never budging from the datapad in her hand.

Riyo laughed, then buckled herself in for landing. “And that’s why I picked you as my assistant.”

Maja raised the stylus she was holding and tipped it in Riyo’s direction. “Exactly.”

They landed and Rex offered to escort Maja to her apartment, which Riyo appreciated. Maja didn’t get the same security detail that Riyo did, but she could just as easily be targeted by political enemies.

Fox and Riyo took the high-speed lift up to Riyo’s secure apartment in Coruscant’s upper levels, and Riyo’s focus wavered as the lights of the city blurred by through the lift’s transparisteel windows.

“...Madam Chancellor?”

Riyo shook her head to rouse herself and looked to Fox, concentrating hard to make sure she wasn’t dreaming up his sudden desire to talk. “Yes?”

Fox’s helmet was clipped to his belt, but his expression was as opaque as ever. “Thank you,” he said. Then he spread his arms to the side, letting them hover awkwardly away from his hips.

Riyo furrowed her brow at him. She’d had way too little sleep in the past 48 hours to believe she was interpreting this correctly. “Fox?”

Fox cleared his throat, a ruddy flush spreading across his cheeks. “You can hug me, if you want.”

“Oh. Oh!”

 _That_ certainly woke Riyo up. She stood dumbfounded for a moment, then saw in the twitch under Fox’s eye that if she didn’t do something quick he might break the lift open and jump out. She fell forward into what she now recognized as open arms and wrapped herself around his torso. Her fingers barely met around the bulky backplate, but she would not be deterred.

Fox’s gloved hands rested uncertainly on Riyo’s shoulders, and she smiled into his chestplate. Not too long ago Fox had been alone and untouched in one of those awful nurseries on Kamino, just like all of his other brothers. She wasn’t about to let that travesty continue.

“I only wish I could have done more,” she said, her voice muffled by his chest.

He didn’t respond for a beat. Riyo was glad he didn’t lie to her, didn’t tell her that she’d done more than enough. There was still so much to do, so many wrongs to right. And she’d only been able to rescue the youngest clones.

“There’s still time,” he said eventually.

She squeezed him tight, her arms full of unyielding plastoid. Through all the armor, though, she thought she could feel a beating heart.

* * *

“But where are we going to get the money? This is the question nobody seems interested in but me,” Senator Taam said.

“Maybe because we are more concerned with sentient lives than with credits,” Senator Organa snapped.

Fox suppressed a sigh behind his helmet. These Armed Services Committee meetings got things done, but the process was painfully slow. Palpatine had been one evil piece of Sithspit, but at least he’d been able to move quickly. If he’d wanted a fully-funded clone retirement program he’d have just called a meeting, made a few benevolent threats, and been done with it.

“ _Concern_ doesn’t pay for programs! The budget does, and I want to get this bill funded as much as any of you. So we can actually provide something to these clones.”

“Whenever we needed new flagships we managed to find the money from _somewhere_ -” Senator Organa said.

“Ok, ok, we’re not getting anywhere arguing,” Chancellor Chuchi said. “Senator Taam is right—it doesn’t matter how great our ideas are if we can’t fund them.”

“Exactly-” Senator Taam said.

“But Senator Organa is right that we can’t use that as an excuse for inaction. This is going to cost major credits, and the budget is going to feel it. So we need to make sure that the public sees it as the necessity it is.”

The table fell silent and the committee exchanged apologetic glances. The corner of Fox’s mouth turned up. Palpatine may have been more efficient, but moments like these reminded him of why he preferred Chancellor Chuchi’s methods. Aside from the obvious fact that she didn’t abuse his brothers and send them to their deaths.

“In my experience, the more civilians know about us the more they’re willing to support us,” Rex said.

Senator Organa nodded. “That’s an excellent point. Up until now the GAR has been used for propaganda, but soldiers have mostly been portrayed as distant, heroic figures. We can run a publicity campaign that highlights your individuality.”

“As well as your practical skills,” Senator Paulness said. “Clones should find more employers willing to hire them and invest in their training if they understand the clones’ unique qualifications.”

Chancellor Chuchi tapped her stylus in her assistant’s direction. “Maja, have Talia Tantipani draw up preliminary ideas for a publicity campaign, would you?”

“On it, ma’am.”

“That’s all well and good, but publicity alone won’t be enough,” said Senator Taam.

“You’re right. We need to also demonstrate the ways in which a retired clone army can benefit the populace,” Senator Paulness said.

“Plenty of the systems we fought on are in desperate need of reconstruction. The locals already know us and most are friendly to us—they might be open to clone workers coming to help rebuild,” Rex said.

“Hmm…” Senator Taam said. “We could expand the Relief and Recovery Agency and have it give hiring precedence to former clone soldiers.”

“I can work on incorporating more job training into the Relief and Recovery Agency, too,” said Senator Organa.

The senators began talking excitedly amongst themself and the energy in the room lifted. Fox recognized a breakthrough when he saw it, and he found himself tuning the chatter out. A twinge of guilt nudged at his conscience, that he wasn’t paying more attention to legislation that would affect the livelihoods of so many of his brothers, but there was only so much of this endless talk he could force himself to focus through. Besides, he had other things to worry about.

Like Daw Saetang. He was an agricultural lobbyist, and though he’d attended several meetings with the Chancellor already, he was slated for a one-on-one right after the Armed Services Committee finished up. One-on-one meetings called for more thorough background checks, and though Saetang’s check hadn’t raised any red flags, something about him still bugged Fox. Was it his smarmy smile? Or maybe the way he didn’t have face tattoos like all the other Pantorans Fox had met. Not that he’d met that many…

“Ok then, Senator Taam will reach out to the Relief and Recovery Agency, Senator Organa will focus on the publicity campaign, and Senator Paulness will head up our contacts in various employment and job training organizations.” Captain Rex said.

The senators all nodded their agreement, and Chancellor Chuchi started gathering up her datapads. “Excellent. I know progress can seem slow, but we need to give our veterans support as soon as possible.”

The meeting adjourned and Fox waited while Maja and Chancellor Chuchi chatted and collected their supplies together. The Chancellor was close enough to her assistant that Maja must be able to smell her perfume—a citrusy scent that Fox only knew because his damned helmet filter didn’t work very well any more. He’d have to request a new one, which would be a royal pain now that his position fell outside of typical command structures.

Yes, he’d have to get it replaced. That way, if the Chancellor ever wanted to hug him again, he wouldn’t be cursed with the memory of her perfume following him around all day. Though, who was he kidding? Why on earth would she ever want to hug him again? He’d been as stiff as a clanker. He’d heard the Kaminoans describe the clones as “droids but better,” before, and thinking back to his painfully awkward hug, he believed there might be some truth to it.

Maja and the Chancellor left the conference room and Fox trailed them a few steps behind. They followed the well-trod path to the Chancellor’s office, where Saetang was already waiting outside for them.

“Madam Chancellor! An honor to see you again,” the tall Pantoran man said, holding his hand out towards Chancellor Chuchi with confidence.

“It’s good to see you, too, Mr. Saetang,” the Chancellor said.

“Please, it’s Daw. And Ms. Joyo, always a pleasure,” he said to Maja.

“Likewise,” Maja said.

Saetang ignored Fox, which suited Fox just fine.

They stepped into the Chancellor’s office and Fox stationed himself by the door. He prepared himself to tune out yet another circular policy argument, but Saetang and his skeezy smile drew his attention. He kept his eyes locked on the Pantoran man and scanned for unusual traits that might signal some sinister motive.

Saetang’s eyes flitted to Fox, and for a moment Fox could swear the man could see his gaze through the tinted visor. But that was impossible.

The negotiations continued, and Saetang had a way of getting what he wanted while making it seem like he was losing that got under Fox’s skin. Still, he trusted Chancellor Chuchi to be able to deal with snakes like Saetang. She’d been around the Senate long enough to recognize the type.

“I’ll be sure to communicate your terms to my colleagues,” Saetang said smoothly. “We’ve had our eyes on that Kaminoan gene selection technology for some time now, and I’m sure we can strike a mutually beneficial deal with them.”

“Thank you, Daw. I very much appreciate your time,” Chancellor Chuchi said, rising to her feet to signal the end of the meeting.

“The pleasure was all mine,” he said. He stood, but made no move towards the door.

“...Is there something else, Mr. Saetang?” Chancellor Chuchi said.

“My apologies, Madam Chancellor, I was working up the nerve to ask you… I nabbed a reservation at _Pantiat Ichi_ for tomorrow and was hoping you might accompany me.”

Fox’s hands held his blaster a little too tightly, and he had to make a conscious effort to loosen his grip. It was just an invitation. Why did it feel like a threat?

Chancellor Chuchi’s eyebrows rose. “Oh! I’m afraid I’ll be busy tomorrow evening. It’s such a shame, I’ve heard they have the best Pantoran food on the planet.”

Saetang offered her a rueful smile. “I understand, it’s so last minute. If your evening frees up, though, please let me know.”

“Of course.”

She walked him to the door of her office and he bowed over her hand before he left, bringing a bluish blush to her cheeks. Then he left and the door finally shut on the bastard.

When the Chancellor turned back to her desk, Maja was grinning at her like a tooka with a convor.

“Stop it!” Chancellor Chuchi said, and she shoved Maja playfully.

“Stop what?” Maja asked, eyes wide with innocence.

“He’s just a smooth-talking lobbyist. It’s not a big deal.”

“You know I actually could carve out time for dinner for you tomorrow night.”

The Chancellor eyed her friend doubtfully. “Are you serious?”

“Why not? He seems nice enough, and I’ve heard _Pantiat Ichi_ is to die for.”

“He’s a lobbyist!”

“Yes, there are rules you’d have to follow, but I can make sure everything is square. Really, Riyo, why not get out and have a little fun? You haven’t taken a single personal day since taking office.”

“I… I suppose I could…”

Maja’s smile grew. “You want me to send him a message?”

Chancellor Chuchi threw up her hands. “Fine. Why not?”

“That’s the spirit!” Maja said, rushing the Chancellor for a surprise hug.

Chancellor Chuchi laughed and pushed at her friend, and soon Fox could no longer make out exactly what they were saying. He sighed and commed Thorn through his helmet’s built-in system. His helmet might be old and falling apart, but at least it was still soundproof with the dampers on.

“Thorn? Can we get another background check on Daw Saetang? Dig a bit deeper this time.”

* * *

The first human Bacara ever killed couldn’t have been much older than he was. At least, biologically. If he just went by years then Bacara was likely at least a decade younger. Regardless, the Twi’lek man Bacara shot in the chest was too thinking, too breathing, too sentient for comfort.

Bacara had never before thought to be grateful to be fighting droids, but he had to admit it was much easier to blow a clanker’s head off than a Twi’lek’s.

“ _Sir, the remaining Separatists have been cleared out,_ ” Solus told him over the comms.

“Do a thorough sweep of the area. I don’t want any stragglers to catch us off guard,” Bacara said.

General Mundi joined Bacara at the top of the ridge overlooking the wooded battlefield. “Excellent work, Commander.”

“Just doing our jobs, sir.”

“Still, I know fighting against sentients isn’t quite that same. You’ve adapted well.”

Bacara nodded and put his hands behind his back. “What’s our next move, sir?”

“Once everything’s sorted here, we only have one more assignment before returning to Coruscant.”

Bacara smiled. He’d get to see his batchmates for the first time in months. And more importantly, he’d be able to tell them what he’d learned about their inhibitor chips.

“It is difficult to be away from the ones we love, isn’t it?” General Mundi said.

Bacara’s smile faded. He didn’t like when the General said things that seemed to respond to the thoughts in his head, _especially_ not when his thoughts strayed too close to the inhibitor chips. “Captain Peke’s waiting to report in the command center,” he said, ignoring the General’s question. It had been rhetorical, anyway.

“Excellent,” General Mundi said, and together they headed for the command center, a collapsible durasteel bunker that had seen plenty of wear in all different kinds of terrain and atmospheres.

They stepped through the automatic doors and Bacara immediately sensed something was wrong. The doors slammed shut behind them and the lights extinguished. When they turned on again the General was surrounded by insurgents, one of them with a blaster held to his head.

“Don’t move! Or the Jedi gets it!” the man said, dirt and blood on his face and desperation in his eyes.

“Let’s just stay calm…” Bacara said, slowly setting his blaster on the ground.

“I tried to warn you, sir!” Captain Peke said from across the room. He was tied up to a chair, and another one of the insurgents held him at blaster-point.

“Everybody quiet!” the man with his blaster to Mundi’s head said.

Peke shut his mouth and Bacara slowly rose from his crouch, his hands held high with his palms open.

“We don’t want trouble with the Republic,” the lead insurgent said. “And we aren’t with the Separatists, either. We just want our planet to be in peace, we just want to live free without Republic interference.”

Bacara’s eyes darted to General Mundi’s, but the General seemed unconcerned. “This is not something you want to do, son.”

“Shut up!” the man shouted. “I know all about your Jedi tricks, and that won’t work on us!”

“This is not going to end well for you. If you leave now we won’t follow you,” Mundi said.

“We’re not leaving until you order all Republic forces out of this system!”

“This is your last warning.”

“ _Kriff_ you and your warnings! _I’m_ the one with the blaster!”

With a sudden _whoosh_ of power, General Mundi pushed outward from himself, knocking everything away from him in a perfect wave of energy. Bacara fell backwards and scrambled to grab his blaster before any of the rebels could get to it first. He grabbed the grip and rolled onto his back, aiming up at whoever might have followed his movements. But there was no one there.

General Mundi stood in the middle of the room, the blue glow of his lightsaber illuminating the carnage around him. The insurgents were dead. All of them. Eight bodies lay scattered around the room, burning wounds bearing testament to their singular cause of death. General Mundi looked down at their prone bodies, his mouth turned downwards and his eyes sad.

“...General? Are you alright?” Bacara asked.

General Mundi turned yellow eyes to Bacara. “Yes, Bacara, thank you. It’s just a shame.”

“...Yes, sir.”

“Well then. Let’s free Captain Peke, shall we?”

Bacara got to his feet and he and General Mundi untied Captain Peke from the chair. Bacara called for help with cleanup through his comm, and in only a half hour they were debriefing in that very same command center as if nothing had happened. All throughout the debrief, though, Bacara could see the shadows of the bodies around the room.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update schedule? What's that?

Nothing suspicious showed up on Daw Saetang’s background check, which irked Fox. Life would be so much easier if he could just tell the Chancellor that Saetang had a drug habit, or was involved with the Pyke Syndicate. Then he wouldn’t have to be here, haunting the dark corners of this pretentious restaurant while the Chancellor sipped tea with this sleemo.

Fox checked in with the troopers stationed around the outside of the restaurant, then scanned the interior again. The dining room was full of guests, but they’d searched them all for weapons before the Chancellor had arrived and Fox was reasonably confident the Chancellor was safe. The food had all been tested beforehand, too, and the staff cleared as well. He’d done everything within reason to ensure Chancellor Chuchi’s safety on this “date,” but still the crowds of unfamiliar faces and the public setting put him on edge.

Chancellor Chuchi’s laugh sounded from across the room, drawing Fox’s eyes. Daw Saetang leaned forward across the table from the Chancellor, and he grinned as he continued whatever amusing anecdote he was in the middle of.

Fox tapped his toe impatiently. Would this night ever end? Would Saetang ask the Chancellor out again and he’d have to suffer through this next week, too? Would he have to go through the nightmare of securing the Chancellor’s dates on a regular basis?

Fox sighed and tried to turn his thoughts to more pleasant things. The food looked pretty good, at least. Fox hadn’t eaten any, but he could imagine it was pleasant. The burgundy soup Saetang sipped looked especially good. He briefly indulged in imagining the savory flavor on his tongue and the warm slide of it down his throat. He’d set his spoon down and tell the Chancellor how delicious it was, and she’d smile and tell him how it was good, but different from what her mother made back home.

“ _Southwest corner, all clear_ ,” Aces said through the comm, pulling Fox from his brief daydream.

“Copy that,” Fox said. Thank the Force for Aces and the many brothers he had keeping him on track.

The Chancellor laughed again and Fox returned his attention to her table. She was smiling and her laugh had sounded sincere, but the smile was one that Fox recognized—one he’d seen her use before when buttering up a particularly nasty diplomat. Fox couldn’t resist the satisfied curl of his lips.

They finished the main course and the waiter came around to clear their plates and take any subsequent orders. Fox was too far away to hear their conversation—he’d thought the Chancellor would at least want _some_ privacy on her date—but he could see the waiter ask about drinks or dessert, could interpret the Chancellor’s regretful smile and nod of thanks. Finally, the end was in sight.

Daw Saetang paid their bill and helped the Chancellor into her coat. They walked together to the valet, and Fox followed a good twenty feet after them. Saetang gestured to his speeder as the valet pulled up, but the Chancellor shook her head apologetically. _Good girl_ , Fox thought. They didn’t have any security information on Saetang’s speeder.

Saetang said his goodbyes and started towards the Chancellor for a hug. Fox tensed. They’d checked Saetang for weapons, but some were difficult to detect, especially small ones that could be employed at close quarters.

The Chancellor’s face twisted and she held her hand out to him to shake, effectively halting his advancing embrace. Saetang’s face fell, but he took it in stride and shook her hand, raising it to his mouth for a kiss. Then he got into his speeder and left. _Good riddance._

Fox walked up to the Chancellor to wait for her speeder—a high-security model whose modifications he’d overseen himself. Shifter pulled the speeder up to the valet and Fox opened the door for the Chancellor, then got into the front seat.

The chatter of troopers leaving the restaurant filled his comms, but Chancellor Chuchi’s sigh cut through them all. He looked through the speeder’s rearview mirror at the Chancellor, but she seemed well enough. She leaned against the side door, a wistful look on her face as she stared out into the neon-lit city night.

“Shifter? How close are we to Shinyee?” Chancellor Chuchi said.

“Not far, ma’am. Maybe ten minutes.”

“Take me there, please?”

Shifter shot Fox a look, then returned his gaze to the road. “...Ma’am?”

“Just for a minute. I want to pick up some dessert since I didn’t get any at the restaurant.”

Shifter looked to Fox again, as if Fox could contradict an order from the Chancellor. Fox silently inclined his head, and Shifter switched on his turn signal. “On our way.”

Great. Shinyee night market. What a nightmare end to an already-stressful evening. Fox called for increased trooper presence in the area, but he’d have to go into the crowd with the Chancellor himself. The market was crowded, the streets narrow, and the traffic dense. He’d need to stay close.

Shifter pulled up to the loading zone in front of the market’s entrance, and Fox got out and opened the door for the Chancellor. She emerged from the speeder and looked up at the bright lights, the neon brilliance reflecting oddly off of her broad smile.

“Thanks, Shifter!” she said, leaning back into the speeder. “I’ll holo you when I need to get picked up.”

She set off into the crowd and Fox followed right behind her, his eyes darting about the crush of people as she pushed heedlessly ahead. He nearly lost her at a particularly packed intersection, his panic nearly bursting until he caught sight of her at the edge of a brightly-colored stall.

“Cha-! Ma’am!” he said, switching to a less conspicuous title before he forgot. “That’s where you got to.”

Chancellor Chuchi looked back at him and had the grace to look abashed. “I’m sorry, Fox, I got a little carried away.”

Fox dismissed her apology and got a better look at the stall she’d found. It was a modest store that only sold some kind of dessert—sticky-looking red orbs on a long skewer.

“We came all this way for this?” he said.

“Two, please,” the Chancellor said to the Weequay behind the counter. She turned back to him. “Don’t knock it till you try it.”

Fox huffed. “It’s hard to imagine anything worth all this trouble.”

The Chancellor’s face fell, and he regretted his sour words. She was the boss, and it was his job to protect her wherever she went, not to keep her in a durasteel box.

“I’m sorry to drag you all the way here. I just… It was a rather disappointing night. And since Maja went to the trouble of clearing my evening for me I decided I shouldn’t let it go to waste.”

“I go wherever you go, ma’am.”

“Yes, well, that’s very kind of you to say, but I really am sorry for the trouble. It’s not your fault I had a bad date.”

The corner of Fox’s mouth turned up, though she couldn’t see that from behind the helmet. He’d suspected that Saetang had been poor company, but it was satisfying to hear confirmation that he’d been right.

Then he saw the droop to the Chancellor’s shoulders and regretted his unkind thoughts. He shouldn’t be glad that her date had gone poorly. Chancellor Chuchi deserved to have a fun night with a handsome fellow if she wanted to. It would mean more work for Fox, but that was what he’d signed up for.

“I got two Jogan sticks here!” the surly vendor said from his stall, holding the glazed fruit out to the street.

“That’s for us!” the Chancellor said.

She retrieved the skewers and handed one to Fox, who took it with ginger fingers. This was definitely going to get all over his gloves.

Chancellor Chuchi eagerly grabbed one of the fruits with her teeth and dragged it from the skewer and into her mouth. The red glaze painted her face like a child playing with her mother’s lip tint, and Fox couldn’t help but chuckle.

“It tastes better if you’re not careful,” Chancellor Chuchi said. “You try it!”

Fox checked his HUD and noted that there were plenty of guards around, now. Not visible, but they’d set up a healthy perimeter around the Chancellor to avert any major catastrophes. He unclicked his helmet and clipped it to his belt, then took a firm, decisive bite of the fruit.

All moisture drained from his mouth and his eyebrows shot up. It wasn’t _bad_ , but…

“That is _so sweet_.”

“You don’t like it?” the Chancellor asked, her golden eyes going wide.

“No, it’s… It’s good. But I don’t know if I can finish it all.”

Chancellor Chuchi’s face fell, and she looked at her skewer with measuring eyes. “I see what you mean. And I suppose you generally eat very healthy, lightly-flavored foods.”

Fox thought back to the ration bars and nutritional pastes that had gotten him through his short life so far. He hadn’t eaten enough non-regulation food to form a very good comparison, but he was pretty confident it couldn’t get much blander than his regular diet. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright then, challenge accepted. I will find you something you like. Shinyee is famous for its street food, and I’m sure there will be something here that suits you.”

“Ma’am, that’s really not necessary-”

“No! I am determined to turn a bad date into a fun evening, and I won’t take no for an answer.”

She turned and marched off into the crowd, and Fox just stared for a few seconds before breaking out of his stupor and chasing after her.

“Alright, I’ll eat whatever you ask,” he said once he’d caught up, nearly knocking over more than one person on the way. “Just please don’t run off like that.”

Chancellor Chuchi smirked in triumph, then eased her way deeper into the crowd. “Let’s start with something nice and savory, shall we?”

Fox dodged and weaved his way through the crowd, his mind struggling to process how after all his years of training and PT he still couldn’t keep up with a tiny blue woman in a dress. After a moment of panic, he spotted her at the counter of another stall, this one blurred by a haze of sweet-scented smoke.

“Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to stick closer to me. Crowds like this are difficult to handle,” he said once he reached her side.

The vendor handed her two more skewers, this time with charred hunks of meat on them, and the Chancellor handed one to Fox with a chagrined look.

“I’m sorry. I’ll stay close, I promise. Let this be my peace offering.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” Fox said, but he accepted the skewer. The smell coming from it was mouthwatering, a funky combination of the weight and savor of meat with a sweat, smoky marinate. He bit down on the top piece and slid it off the skewer, and as soon as the meat touched his tongue his eyes widened.

“That is _good_.”

The Chancellor beamed. “I knew you’d like it.”

Chancellor Chuchi led him to a few other stalls and they collected a small, extremely unhealthy meal of street food: fried dough, bright green noodles, some kind of savory crepe, and honey-soaked fruits. Her shriek-hawk eyes spied a seating area crammed into one corner of the market, and she claimed a small table for them. The spoils of her hunt barely fit on the table.

“Ma’am, I don’t know if we can eat all of this…” Fox said.

“Surely a man as big and strong as you can make short work of this.”

Something thick seemed lodged in Fox’s throat, and he swallowed several times to bring it down. “I’m on duty. If I’m stuffed too full I can’t operate at full capacity.”

“I suppose that also means you won’t be indulging in any of the drinks I’m about to purchase?” the Chancellor said, pointing a dainty finger at a stall selling purple fluid in clear single-use cups.

“They’re alcoholic?”

“Yes. You’re allowed to drink them in the seating area, though.”

“Sorry, ma’am. I have a strict no alcohol on duty policy.”

“I guessed as much,” she said, her face falling. Then she brightened and made a move towards the drinks stand. “I’ll be right back with my drinks, then we can dig in!”

Fox watched her go, feeling disoriented by the strange intimacy of seeing her so relaxed. Then her words fully registered in his mind. “...Drinks?”

She came back in a few minutes with four cups balanced expertly in her hands. “Even if we don’t finish everything, we can take the leftovers home. It’s not quite as good cold, but it will still be worth eating.”

“As you say, ma’am.”

Her eyes flicked back up to his. “And you can call me Riyo.”

Fox choked on the last piece of meat from his skewer. “Ma’am, protocol-”

“I understand you can’t call me that in front of other people, but we’re together _constantly_. Sometimes I need a break from being the Chancellor.”

The ends of her eyebrows raised in pleading, and the glowing lights of the market glittered in her sunlight eyes. Whatever mystery object Fox had swallowed earlier clogged up his throat again. “Of course, ma- Riyo.”

Her name felt strange on her tongue, like trying to speak Huttese, but not in an unpleasant way. He worried that now that he’d used her name once, he might never be able to stop.

Riyo’s expression brightened and she folded her hands in front of her. “Excellent! Let’s get started, shall we?”

“We already ate two different skewers.”

Riyo waved her hand dismissively. “Those were just to whet our appetites. Now the real feast begins.”

They dug in, and Riyo watched carefully for Fox’s reaction to each food. He liked the crepe and the fruits the most, though every single item was leaps and bounds tastier than anything he’d had in the mess. Though Riyo seemed primarily concerned with Fox’s dining experience, she clearly enjoyed the food herself. She made a soft groan of pleasure with each bite she took, and Fox forced himself to look away as heat rose up his neck.

“Really? The honey bliss fruits were your favorite?” Riyo asked after they’d demolished the meal. “I thought you didn’t like things to be too sweet.”

Fox shrugged. “It’s growing on me. I think it was so strong, it caught me off guard at first.”

A wicked smile grew on Riyo’s face. “Am I going to be the one to lead you astray? To introduce you to the world of junk food?”

“I think that’s what just happened.”

Riyo laughed and stretched out her back like a tooka, then surveyed the mess left behind by their meal. “You were worried this was too much food, but look at us! We finished it, no problem.”

“That we did.”

Fox collected the packaging from their food and threw it away in garbage receptacles at the edges of the seating area. When he got back, Riyo was leaned forward across the table, a pensive look on her face.

“Which date do you think is better, Fox?” she asked, looking up at him. “A dinner at a fancy restaurant or this?”

Fox cleared this throat to buy some time before answering. This conversation felt like dangerous territory. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

“Oh,” she said, diminished. “You’ve never been on a date, have you?”

“No.”

“Don’t you have some idea of what a date is like, though?”

“The only idea I have of civilian courtship came from your evening tonight with Mr. Saetang, ma’am.”

She wrinkled her nose. “It’s Riyo. And that won’t do. That won’t do at all.”

Fox crossed his arms and his lip curled. He didn’t like the idea of anyone, least of all Riyo, thinking his experience wasn’t sufficient. “My apologies, Riyo, but it’s not as if Chancellor Palpatine was in the habit of taking women out for dinner and a show.”

“Oh!” Riyo’s brows raised in surprise. “That’s not what I meant at all, Fox! I just meant, it’s a shame that you’ve missed out on so many things that are a normal part of growing up for most sentients. And now that the GAR is reforming, there’s nothing to keep you from entertainment, hobbies, a social life…”

Her point gave Fox pause. He’d been surrounded by talk of clone rights and bills granting citizenship and retirement options, but he hadn’t really thought much about what he would do outside of the GAR. He planned to stay in the military, but even those who remained soldiers would have more freedom to a normal life outside of their time on-duty. It was strange. Fox had never even worn anything besides his cadet clothes on Kamino, his blacks, and his officers uniform.

“Never fear! It is never too late in life to learn. I can teach you!” Riyo said.

Fox gathered his wandering thoughts and refocused his attention on her. “Huh?”

She giggled, a bluish flush high on her cheeks, and Fox thought back to how many cups of that deep purple drink he’d thrown away.

“I said, I can teach you what a date is. It’s very simple, really. You go somewhere, with someone you like, and do some sort of planned activity. It doesn’t have to cost any money, but some common options are a meal, a show, shopping, a park, that sort of thing.”

“And what made your evening with Mr. Saetang bad?” Fox asked.

Riyo grimaced, the expression pulling the gilt tattoos on her cheeks downward. “A quality date is determined more by the participants than the activity. Daw is… nice enough. But a bit self-centered. He talked about himself the whole night.”

“I see.” Fox narrowed his eyes and thought back to Saetang’s background check. Had there been anything on there that would have tipped Fox off to what a poor companion he’d make?

“Now _this_ ,” Riyo said, taking a sip from her last remaining drink. “ _This_ is a good date.”

Fox’s eyebrows shot up. “Date?”

Riyo giggled again. “You should see your face, Fox! Don’t worry, I know it’s not a real date and protocol and rules and all that sithspit.”

_Sithspit?_ Since when did Chancellor Chuchi swear?

“But this has been a nice evening,” Riyo continued. “I talked with you, and you’re very fun to talk to. We got delicious food, we walked around a fun location. It’s all the hallmarks of a good date.”

The blue hue was even more pronounced on her cheeks now, and Fox wondered if his own face was similarly flushed. He wouldn’t have alcohol to blame for it, though.

He got to his feet. “It has been a good evening, ma’am, but we should get going. It’s quite late already.”

“Wait! I haven’t told you about how a date ends yet!” she said, though she got to her feet.

“How does it end?” Fox asked indulgently, waiting for her to collect herself.

“If a date goes badly, you go your separate ways and ignore his transmissions for the next few weeks.”

“And if it goes well?” Fox asked.

Riyo grinned, the smile almost predatory on her pastel features. “Then he takes you home.”

Fox swallowed, the gleam in her eye making him nervous. Riyo laughed and swatted at his arm playfully.

“Well, it’s getting late, Fox! Ready to take me home?”

What? _What?_ Was that an _innuendo_ , coming out of the mouth of the _Chancellor?_ Fox was speechless. What did most people say when faced with bone-melting embarrassment? He cycled through years of senatorial interactions, searching for an acceptable response.

He laughed.

It was a stilted, high-pitched sound—less mechanical than a droid but more wooden than a tree. Riyo looked at him, brows high on her forehead, and her shoulders shook in silent laughter. Fox cut off the strange sound and turned from her, preferring to face the crowd than the mocking Chancellor.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said.

They wound their way through the mass of people, eventually meeting Shifter at one of the side alleys. Fox helped Riyo into the speeder and was about to shut the door behind her when she grabbed his arm.

“No, Fox, I’m sick of sitting in the back seat alone. You’re sitting back here.”

“Ma,am, that’s against-”

“If you say _one more word_ about protocol I think I’ll scream,” she said. She tugged him down to her level and leaned halfway out of the speeder towards him, close enough that he could smell the fruity tang of whatever she’d been drinking on her breath. “ _I_ am the Chancellor, so _I_ get to set protocol. And I say you sit in the back seat.”

Fox shut his mouth and scooted into the speeder beside her. Shifter shot him a sideways look through the mirror, which Fox pointedly ignored. Chancellor Chuchi reclined in the seat next to him, but Fox sat stiff and upright, his hands clenched tightly in his lap.

“I know you had a good time,” Riyo said. “Don’t try to hide it.”

“How would you know that?”

“You didn’t put your helmet back on,” she said, leaning back into the cushion of the seat with a satisfied smirk.

Fox frowned and reached for his helmet, but before he could get to it Riyo had grabbed it and stuck it on her head. Fox stared at her, the strange sight of her small form under his oversized helmet impossible to look away from. Silence filled the speeder for a long moment, then he reached out and tipped the helmet up by the chin, partially uncovering her face.

“You know it’s soundproofed unless you turn the external audio on, right?” he said.

“No wonder you weren’t responding!” Riyo’s mouth said from underneath the red aerator. “So who knows what kind of stuff you might be saying behind my back. Or in front of it!”

“Only ever good things, Riyo,” he said without thinking.

Then he froze. Riyo’s mouth gaped slightly and Fox retracted his hand, letting his helmet fall back over her chin. He turned his head to look out the window, but he could feel the eyes of the Chancellor and Shifter burning holes into the back of his head.

_What am I_ doing? _I didn’t accidentally drink any of that purple stuff, did I?_

But Fox knew he hadn’t imbibed. The truth was even worse.

They pulled up to the Senatorial Residences, and Riyo took off Fox’s helmet, her expression calm and collected despite the scent of the alcohol that still lingered on her breath. Fox waited a beat, but Riyo didn’t give him his helmet back, so he opened the door for her and followed her to the secure elevator to her apartment.

Fox stood at Riyo’s side as the lift shot upwards. He considered asking for his helmet back for a moment but decided against it. Something weighty hovered between them, something infused with the knowledge of the kind of man he was and the kinds of things he did and did not say. Of the kinds of rules and habits that he’d broken today, for her.

The lift reached Riyo’s floor and the doors pinged open. Fox waited for Riyo to exit first, then followed her inside. She halted only a few steps into her plush apartment and stood with her back to him, her fingers tightening over the helmet she still held in her hand.

“You’ll be wanting this back, won’t you?” she said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

She slowly turned to face him, his helmet clutched to her chest like a small child’s safety blanket. Fox stayed put, and she took several small but deliberate steps towards him, until the helmet in her hands thunked lightly against his chest plate.

Every muscle in Fox’s body tensed like he was waiting for the starting gun to fire back in training on Kamino. His heart rate spiked and he fought valiantly to bring it back into line. Riyo’s golden eyes were staring up at him, so close he could see the flecks of brown that brought layers and mystery to their depths. Her lips were parted, and he could see now that they were a slightly lighter, pinker color than the rest of her violet complexion. She was beautiful, which was something he’d always known but now truly felt.

“...Here’s your helmet,” Riyo said, eyes still trained on him.

He nodded slowly, then brought his hands up to grasp the painted plastoid. His fingers curled around the base of the helmet, but Riyo didn’t let go. She crept her hands towards his and let her fingers brush over his gloved hands. She tugged lightly on his wrists, pulling him closer to her.

Fox felt like he was having an out-of-body experience. He’d never kissed anyone before. Never. He’d thought about it every once in a while, sure, but he was far too busy to think too hard about anything most days. It also seemed pointless to him, wasting time and energy on fantasies that would only bring him pain. But now… Now he wondered just what Riyo might taste like. He wondered what exactly it was about holding another being in your arms that drove some men to madness. He wondered if he was going mad himself.

“Fox…” Riyo said, her eyes flicking down to his mouth, then back up to his eyes.

He dipped his head towards her and she inhaled a tiny gasp of breath. The motion caused the gold earrings dangling from her ears to shift and glitter, the soft light of her apartment glinting off of the artful representation of the Republic Cog etched into the surface. It was appropriate jewelry for the Chancellor.

Fox straightened abruptly, and Chancellor Chuchi staggered with the abrupt removal of his helmet from her hands.

“Thank you, Madam Chancellor,” he said. He put the helmet on over his head and it clicked firmly into place. “Mol should be here shortly for the night shift. I will wait by the door.”

Chancellor Chuchi's face fell and she looked back at Fox with all the vulnerability of a wounded fawn.

“Ah… I see. Thank you, Commander,” she said. Then she quietly disappeared into the depths of her rooms.

Fox stood at the door, back straight and feet shoulder-width apart, and waited for his relief to come. His eyes flitted to each vulnerability in the apartment, and his HUD flashed video from the various security cameras in and around the Chancellor’s quarters. Other than that, his mind was blank, blissfully free of messy feelings and self-destructive dreams.

* * *

Nobody in the GAR would ever accuse Bacara of being soft, but even he was relieved to learn their last assignment before returning to Coruscant shouldn’t involve any fighting. He and his men were tired, and the war was winding down. He couldn’t think of anything less appealing than dying in battle during the cleanup period, after all the treaties had been signed. He believed in sacrificing lives for victory, but needless death was just a waste.

“It is good to see you, Master Mundi,” Luminara Unduli said with a respectful incline of her headdress. “The Gungans will be pleased to receive relief.”

General Unduli and Commander Gree welcomed Bacara and Mundi into the elegant residence Queen Apailana had provided for them in Theed. Bacara would rather be with his men, delivering emergency supplies to the underwater Gungan communities, but being a part of an army was understanding one’s place in the whole. Right now, he was the meetings man, even if that meant grinding through logistics planning on emergency supply distribution.

“I am sure my men are pleased to use their amphibious assault vehicles for a more peaceful purpose, for a change,” General Mundi said.

General Unduli gestured for them to join her and Gree at a long table in front of a breathtaking vista of greenery and waterfalls. Bacara had been all over the galaxy, but this must be the most beautiful planet he’d ever seen. He didn’t trust it.

“I assume you received the most recent transmission from the Council?” General Unduli said.

General Mundi laced his fingers together and tilted his tall forehead to the side. “About the release of the clones, yes.”

“I am pleased,” General Unduli said. “I am eager for the Jedi to return to a role more closely aligned with our peacekeeping purpose.”

General Mundi tilted his head to the side, the gesture swinging his tall forehead in a long arc. “I am surprised to hear this from you, Master Unduli. Without the intervention of the Council this war would have gone longer, would perhaps have fractured the Republic permanently. Chancellor Palpatine’s treachery is only further proof that the Republic needs the Jedi.”

A muscle in Bacara’s jaw spasmed. A soldier didn’t think of what the Republic owed him. It was about what _he_ owed the _Republic_. General Mundi would never understand that. He glanced down the table at Gree and wondered if he ever had similar thoughts about his general.

“Yes, perhaps Darth Sidious would have been impossible to stop without the Council,” Unduli said, “but that is a separate matter entirely from our service in the Grand Army.”

“It’s no matter,” Mundi said. “I’ll bring the subject up with Master Yoda once we return to Coruscant.”

“You may wish to send him a transmission earlier. I understand that he and other Council members are meeting with the Chancellor in the next few days to discuss phasing out the Jedi’s involvement in the Republic political sphere.”

General Mundi’s snowy brows knit together, his expression showing more consternation than Bacara had ever seen from his before. “I will be sure to message him right away. If the Jedi do not shepard the Republic, our fair galaxy will certainly go astray.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Bacara found himself speaking before consciously considering the act, “the Republic is a Republic because its member systems decide its destiny. The Jedi Council doesn’t rule the Republic.”

Generals Mundi and Unduli turned their heads in his direction, eyes wide and considering as if they had forgotten his presence. More words threatened to tumble from Bacara’s tongue, but he bit his cheek and held them in. This was already bad enough. He didn’t want to give General Mundi any reason to relieve him from duty—especially considering the new intel he bore.

“You are right, of course, Bacara,” Mundi said, his voice amused rather than angry. “But the guiding influence of the Council affects many systems, far and wide.”

“Master Mundi,” General Unduli said, “We must always remember humility. The Jedi are fallible, and it was under the Council’s watch that Darth Sidious infiltrated the Senate.”

“I take no pride in myself, only in the Force—only in the Jedi way. An individual Jedi is fallible only insofar as he strays from the Code. But a true Jedi will always know the will of the Force. That is why it is our duty to guide the people of the galaxy who lack this direct access to the Force.”

“I see your logic, though I cannot say I wholly agree with it,” Unduli said. “Be that as it may, we all must be willing to accept the Chancellor’s decision if she wishes to sever ties with the Council.”

A stillness fell across Mundi—a terrible absence that reminded Bacara of the headless rebels who’d fallen to Mundi’s blade only a few days before. “Well, perhaps she will remember that were it not for the assistance of the Council, she would not hold her current position.”

An awkward silence filled the cavernous room, and General Unduli bobbed her head noncommittally.

_Treason._

The thought dashed through Bacara’s mind before he could catch hold of it, and General Mundi’s yellow eyes flashed to him. Bacara emptied his thoughts, his face stoic as stone, and waited while General Mundi’s brow furrowed at him.

“General Unduli, Captain Roil is waiting to hear our next steps,” Gree said, blessedly breaking the tension in the room.

“Ah, thank you, Commander,” Unduli said. “It has been too long since I’ve spent time with other Masters, you’ll forgive us for catching up.”

“Of course, sir.”

Gree opened up a holo disc on the table that displayed the key points of relief delivery on the planet and outlined the logistics of their next task. Bacara dove in, eager to stuff his brain with as much safe information as possible, leaving no space for thoughts he didn’t want Mundi to sense. He and Gree planned the kriff out of the second phase of the relief mission, but Bacara was beginning to realize that all the discipline and competence in the world couldn’t stamp out the anger and fear taking root in his gut.


End file.
